Groundhog's Night
by Leona Esperanza
Summary: Jimmy wakes up at midnight, lying next to Tony. By dawn, the man he loves is dead, along with the rest of his team. Then Jimmy wakes up at midnight, lying next to Tony... Inspired by the O'Dark Thirty and Groundhog's Day challenges on NFA. Jimmy/Tony.
1. Chapter 1

This story comes after _In the Closet _and an unnamed, unposted second story that I just haven't been able to finish yet. All you need to know is that several weeks after their kidnapping, Jimmy started having nightmares and tried to hide it from Tony. I promise I'll finish that story someday, but in the meantime, here's the next story. It takes a sci-fi/AU turn, as it was inspired by the O'Dark Thirty and Groundhog's Day challenges over on NFA. I hope you enjoy it.

Warnings: Slash (non-explicit), minor profanity, disturbing imagery, temporary but repeated character deaths.

Disclaimer – I don't own a thing. Not a darn thing. So don't sue.

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><p>Groundhog's Night<p>

Chapter One

_February 5, 2011 – 12:01am_

Jimmy came awake with a start, heart pounding in his chest. He sat up quickly, wide eyes scanning the darkened room, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Fumbling for his glasses, he slipped them on and peered at the alarm clock on the nightstand next to him. Why, he wondered, was he suddenly so wide awake in the middle of the night?

Letting out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Jimmy closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair, willing himself to relax. Waking up in a panic was hardly new to him, but usually he could figure out the cause. It was one thing to wake up scared when dreaming about guns being pointed at him; but when he hadn't been dreaming at all? That was a new one for Jimmy.

At least he hadn't woken up his bedmate. As jittery as he felt, Jimmy still couldn't help but smile as he looked down at the sleeping figure lying next to him, predictably hogging most of the covers. Tony always swore that Jimmy was just making that up; one of these days, when it wasn't so dangerous, Jimmy was going to take a picture of him and make it the picture ID associated with Tony's phone number, so it would be displayed whenever Tony called. _That_ would teach him a lesson!

Someday, he'd do it. Someday, when it was safe to share their secret. Until then, Tony's calls could be identified only by a picture Jimmy had taken of a cup of Tony's favorite coffee – nothing that could be traced back to the caller. It was safer that way.

Who would believe it, anyway? Who would believe that Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, ladies' man extraordinaire, could possibly want to share his bed and his heart with the Autopsy Gremlin? Aside from Ducky, that is – though they'd tried, there was no hiding their secret from the observant M.E. Ducky had them figured out almost from the beginning. But everyone else? Oblivious. And Ducky had agreed to help them keep it that way, at least for now.

"_After all,"_ Jimmy remembered Ducky saying, _"Rule 12 is Jethro's rule, not mine. But like many of Jethro's rules, there's a good reason behind it. Best to prove that those __reasons don't apply in your case, before you try to convince him to allow you to be the exception."_

So they were keeping their relationship on the downlow, at least for the time being. For the most part, Jimmy didn't mind. After all, he'd already had some experience with sneaking around with a coworker. And unlike Michelle, Tony was perfectly willing to come home with him, or to invite Jimmy to his place. In fact, he insisted.

"_Not that it wouldn't be fun,"_ Tony had commented. _"But I am _not_ going to have Gibbs go looking for office supplies and find – us."_

"_Better than Ziva finding us,"_ Jimmy had responded. _"She'd kill us both with the paperclips."_

"_Are you kidding? Death by paperclip would be the _easy_ option. I'd take Ziva over Gibbs any day."_

Jimmy had been surprised when Tony showed up at his door earlier in the evening. Surprised first because he couldn't understand how NCIS had lost in the three-way power struggle with the FBI and the ATF over the case they'd been working. The firearms and explosives had been stolen from a _Marine_ base, by _Marines_, and were most likely being sold on the black market by – wait for it – _Marines_. What part of NCIS jurisdiction did they not understand?

But somehow the FBI and ATF got involved, and the FBI had been granted lead on the case. Which was why the number one suspect was now in FBI custody, being grilled by Agent Fornell and his team, while Gibbs, Vance, and the ATF team were only allowed to observe.

Jimmy was then surprised that Tony – and, in fact, the rest of the team – hadn't stayed to observe as well. Tony had winked when he mentioned it. "Boss has got something up his sleeve, I can tell," he'd confided to Jimmy. "Something's going to happen in that interrogation room. Either the guy won't break and Toby will have to ask Gibbs to step in" – Tony's grin held just a hint of malice there – "or the guy _will_ break and give up something that'll land the ball back in NCIS's court." Tony kicked off his shoes and patted the couch cushion next to him, inviting Jimmy to slide in closer, which he was more than happy to do.

"I still don't get why you're not still there." Jimmy wrapped his arms around Tony and pulled him closer still. "Not that I'm complaining," he added hastily.

Tony chuckled as he rested his head on Jimmy's shoulder. "Because it's going to take hours to get this guy to talk. He's too loyal to his buddies to give in without a fight, even if he knows he's going to lose in the end. Boss wants us well-rested when he does – it'll be another good reason to let us take the lead."

"But when that happens – what if McGee uses your phone's GPS to find you, and finds out you're here?" That was the third reason Jimmy had been surprised to see Tony tonight.

"He won't – probably," Tony admitted. "And if he does, I'll threaten to make his life hell –"

"That's different from the norm, how?" Jimmy couldn't stop himself.

"– if he rats us out," Tony finished. Then he sighed and let himself relax further into Jimmy's arms. "But the real reason I'm here," he continued, "is you. I've hardly seen you all week."

"It's been a little crazy," Jimmy agreed.

"It's not the Friday night I would have planned, but I figured, even if it's only for a little while, I wanted to see you. I'm not sure what will happen with this guy, but I get the feeling that the next few days are going to be pretty rough."

Jimmy kept his voice carefully neutral as he said, "Well, it sounds like you should get some sleep, then." He let his fingertips brush along Tony's neck, silently asking the question that he was hesitant to voice.

Tony turned in Jimmy's arms until he was facing his lover and leaned in for a long, slow kiss. When their lips parted, he whispered, "Why don't you come tuck me in?"

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><p>Watching his lover breathing slowly and deeply in the sleep of the well-sated, Jimmy sighed, a silly smile crossing his face. Sometimes he couldn't believe that only Ducky had them figured out. The way he felt whenever he saw Tony, Jimmy was sure, ought to be perfectly obvious to anyone who looked at his face. Either he was a better actor than he thought, or they just weren't paying that much attention to him.<p>

_Probably the second,_ Jimmy thought ruefully. _But it's just as well._

Moving quietly, Jimmy slid out of bed and felt around for his clothes. Behind him, he heard the bed shift slightly as Tony rolled to the center, pulling all the covers with him. Jimmy grinned and shook his head as he pulled his t-shirt over his head and slipped on the pajama bottoms he'd been wearing when Tony showed up. Then he walked softly to the door and slipped through quickly, before the light from the living room could disturb Tony's rest.

_I don't think I'm going to be able to fall asleep anytime soon,_ Jimmy thought. _Might as well let him sleep without me tossing and turning next to him. Maybe I can read a few chapters – there's not going to be anything on TV except infomercials._

If he was completely honest with himself, Jimmy would concede that he _should_ be spending his time studying for his upcoming exam on Monday. After all, that was what he'd been doing before Tony knocked on his door. But the idea of cracking open a textbook at midnight, when he should be sleeping, just didn't appeal to him. And while he didn't really want to admit it, he knew that trying to study in his current state of mind was probably wasted effort. The anxiety he'd woken up with hadn't abated, and it was starting to bother him.

He decided to make some hot chocolate, something to soothe his nerves and maybe even help lull him back to sleep. He had a one-cup coffee maker that he also used to heat water for hot chocolate or tea, which he now filled with cold water. Just as he was getting ready to start the machine, however, he heard Tony's cell phone begin ringing in the bedroom.

Hand poised over the start button, Jimmy listened.

"DiNozzo." Tony sounded tired – no surprise there. This case had the whole team running all week. "What'd we get, Boss?" A pause. "Homeland? Seriously?"

Jimmy frowned. Adding a fourth agency to this mix could only make things more complicated. Why did Homeland Security suddenly feel the need to get involved?

"These are the weapons that disappeared from _our_ Marine bases?" There was a little more excitement in Tony's voice, which Jimmy took as a good sign.

"Tonight?"

That was what Jimmy was waiting to hear. He quickly popped in a filter and a measured amount of ground coffee, then started the machine. Tony's travel mug was located and slotted into place just before the fresh-brewed coffee began to drip.

"Right. I'm on my way."

Jimmy nodded. Just what he was expecting to hear.

He headed back to the bedroom, reaching the door just as Tony opened it and stepped out.

"Jimmy? What are you doing up?"

Jimmy stopped him with a quick kiss. "Couldn't sleep, so I got up to read a bit," he explained.

Tony looked at him carefully. "I thought you were done having nightmares…"

Jimmy shook his head furiously. "No, no, that's not it, I promise." He hoped Tony would believe him; Jimmy had never been more serious than when he'd promised that he would stop hiding from Tony when something was wrong. Breaking that promise, he knew, would seriously undermine the trust that Tony had in him. "I just woke up and couldn't get back to sleep."

Tony sniffed. "So you thought coffee would help?"

"That's for you, not me." Jimmy put his hands on Tony's shoulders and turned him toward the bathroom. "You've got time for a quick shower. I'll get your stuff together."

Tony turned back long enough to press his lips to Jimmy's. "What did I do to deserve you?" he asked, only half mockingly.

Jimmy smiled. "I think you put up with me, for one thing." He gave his lover a little push. "Now go, before I have to explain to Gibbs that his senior field agent was late because he was too busy seducing the autopsy assistant."

"Hah!" Tony stepped into the bathroom; a moment later, Jimmy heard the water running. "You gonna have that conversation face to face?" Tony called out over the noise of the shower.

_I was hoping to avoid that_, Jimmy thought. _That was kind of my point…?_

But voicing that opinion was only likely to delay Tony further and bring that dreaded face-to-face meeting closer, so instead Jimmy focused on picking up discarded clothing and let Tony get on with his preparations. By the time Tony was clean and dressed, Jimmy had a travel mug full of coffee and a slice of re-heated pizza ready to go.

"Stay safe out there," he admonished the older man as Tony pulled his coat on. He handed over the coffee and food as soon as Tony had his hands free. "Call me if you have any down time."

"You should be sleeping, young man," Tony teased as Jimmy opened the door for him. "Gonna?"

"Probably not."

Tony rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. "See you when I can." He saluted Jimmy with the slice of pizza before tearing off a bite. "Mwauf mwah," he continued as he started down the hall, chewing.

Jimmy shook his head, smiling. "I love you too, you slob."

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><p>Don't let the fluff fool you - events are about to take a serious turn up ahead.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Aside from the obvious – the Navy Yard – all locations in this story are purely fictional. I didn't want to do this to anyone's actual hometown.

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><p>Chapter Two<p>

_February 5, 2011 – 12:33am_

After Tony left, Jimmy closed the door and leaned against it, surveying his tiny apartment. He didn't know why, but he was fairly certain he wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight. Good thing it was Friday – no, Saturday, now. Maybe he could sneak in a nap this afternoon if he needed it. For now…

For now, he decided, he would put this strange burst of energy to use. He still couldn't settle down enough to study, but there were plenty of things he could do that didn't require that level of focus.

So for the next few hours, Jimmy vigorously attacked every chore that he'd been avoiding around the apartment. He did the dishes by hand – his dishwasher had been broken for weeks and the landlord hadn't yet repaired it. He cleaned out the refrigerator, giving a firm farewell to a couple of plastic containers that now contained their own little ecosystems. After lugging the garbage down to the dumpster – if he'd thought about it, he would have saved the refrigerator til last – he reorganized the cabinet under the sink, getting rid of several near-empty bottles of various cleaning products that he'd never got around to throwing out. Then he took a nearly-new bottle of disinfectant and proceeded to wipe down the counters.

When the kitchen was done, he moved into the bathroom. It somehow seemed unfair that a room dedicated to cleansing the human body could make one feel so disgusting when he cleaned it in its turn. Afterwards, he took a shower – starting the vicious cycle over again, he realized – and changed into jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, finally ready to settle down on the couch and find some form of entertainment.

Though he was a little tired, physically, from his exertions, Jimmy was nowhere near being sleepy. He turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, but most of them were either still running infomercials – _"If you call now, within the next 20 minutes – 'cause you know we can't do this all day" _– or what they were labeling as "classic" movies. He and Tony had only been together for a few months, but in those months they'd spent quite a lot of their time watching classic movies together, and somehow, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" just didn't rate.

Finally, Jimmy left the TV on ZNN and went to his closet to pull a long-ignored box from its dusty corner. Resolving to buy some Pledge or Endust next time he felt like cleaning, he brushed the dust off a box of puzzle pieces as he returned to the living room. A few moments later, he had a large space cleared on the worn coffee table and was happily hunting for corner pieces.

Maybe this was why he was so good at solving the "meat puzzles" that Dr. Mallard and he came across on an all-too-regular basis, Jimmy reflected. Or maybe it was his ability to focus on a problem to the exclusion of all else around him that made him so good at his job. Regardless, Jimmy knew where his strengths lay – and that was _not_ as a field agent. He liked to take his time, examine the evidence from all angles, and discover how it all came together. The gut instinct, the fast action, and – Jimmy would be the first to admit it – the people skills necessary for such a job were best left to those who were better at it. Like Tony, for example.

Tony knew how to get people to open up to him. He could flatter and charm until they were ready to do almost anything for him. He could inspire trust. When that didn't work, he could use sarcasm and witty remarks to provoke people into telling more than they intended, sometimes just to get him to shut up. He had, more than once, turned the tables on people who thought that _they_ were interrogating _him_. In short, Tony could respond to people in any of a dozen different ways, and – and this was the important part – he was generally astute enough to choose which of those ways would get him what he wanted. Unlike Jimmy, who'd stuck his foot in his mouth so many times that Abby insisted that was how he'd developed his shoe fetish.

Jimmy turned a puzzle piece over and over between his fingers, contemplating the larger puzzle of how he and Tony could make their lives fit together without screwing something up. They loved each other, and they loved their jobs; could they keep both, or would they be forced to give up one or the other? And, when it came down to it, which would they give up?

_If we could just convince Gibbs that what we have won't interfere_, Jimmy thought, not for the first time. _But how do we do that? Is it even possible?_

A sudden shift in the tone of voice coming from the television distracted Jimmy from his thoughts.

"– just received reports of an apparent explosion in the D.C. suburb of Rothstown, Virginia," the news anchorwoman was saying. She had one hand held up to her ear, presumably to an earpiece. "Details are spotty, but I'm hearing that a building and perhaps part of a nearby interstate have sustained damage. No word yet on the cause or the number of casualties. Emergency services are on the scene, and –"

Jimmy felt a little guilty about the huge sense of relief he'd felt when he realized that none of his family or friends lived in the suburb in question. He wondered what had happened, and how bad the damage was. How many people were on the interstate at the time? And how many in the building? He glanced at the clock – 5:16am. Early enough that some people would have started their morning commute – but wait, this was Saturday. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.

"We now have footage taken by a traffic helicopter near the site of the explosion. You can see the large plumes of smoke coming from this office building. The building is located almost underneath the Interstate 66 overpass, which accounts for the damage to the roadway. A large section of the overpass has collapsed –"

The puzzle completely forgotten, Jimmy stood up and moved closer to the screen. The helicopter was quite a distance from the site of the explosion – _and some air traffic controller somewhere is probably having fits trying to get them to move even further away_, Jimmy thought – but the damage to the roadway was clearly visible. Part of one lane – the eastbound lane – was missing a huge section of overpass. Almost sick to his stomach, Jimmy saw one car teetering on the edge. He hoped that its passengers had already made it out alive.

"I-66 is being shut down from exit 74 to 75. The Virginia DOT is asking anyone needing to travel to use these alternate routes –"

The aerial view vanished, replaced by a traffic map. Jimmy ignored it, his thoughts turning inward as he contemplated the tragedy being shown on live TV.

The emergency rooms were going to be full of injured people, some with just a few scratches, some barely clinging to life. The ER medical staffs would do their best, and at least they could offer the families of the injured some hope that their loved ones would survive. But there would be some who wouldn't make it; and for those, there would be people like Dr. Mallard to offer the only hope they could – that the reason for this disaster would be found, and the responsible parties brought to justice.

A new voice wrenched Jimmy's attention back to the TV.

"– I'm two blocks from the building, just outside the perimeter that law enforcement officials have set up." The speaker was a young brunette, trying but not quite able to hide a nervous excitement. Not that she was happy to be reporting live from a disaster site; but while most law enforcement or FEMA spokespeople would try to project an aura of calm, this woman exuded just the opposite.

"We have reports that Homeland Security, the FBI, and several other law enforcement agencies responded immediately to the crisis, and may in fact have already been here when the building exploded –"

"_What?_" Jimmy collapsed to his knees, pressing his hands to either side of the screen as he leaned in closer, studying every inch of background he could see. Directly in front of him, the brunette continued:

"– Rescue workers are shoring up parts of the building in an attempt to gain access. We are told that the call center located on the first floor runs a half-shift on the weekends, but was scheduled to be closed this weekend due to decreased demand during the economic slowdown. Given that the FBI and other agencies appeared to be on the scene at the time of the explosion, we are speculating at this point that there may be law enforcement officers trapped inside –"

"No, oh no," Jimmy whispered. His heart pounded painfully in his chest; the temperature in the room seemed to climb by several degrees. Desperately he kept his eyes glued to the screen, searching for any sign that NCIS was one of the "other agencies" mentioned.

Abruptly the scene cut away, replaced by the aerial view from the traffic helicopter. Dimly, Jimmy noted that the car he'd seen earlier was being winched back from the edge of the precipice, but he no longer had a thought to spare for its unknown passengers. The relief he'd felt earlier was gone completely, replaced by stark fear that _this_ was what Tony and the others had been called in to try to prevent, and worse, that they'd been inside…

"An unnamed source within the FBI has confirmed that an ongoing investigation led them to the Art Jones Building early this morning, though not in time to prevent what appears to be a deliberate attack, most likely intended to destroy the I-66 overpass." This was from the anchorwoman at the ZNN studio. Live footage had been compressed to a corner of the screen; the majority of the screen was taken up by the studio camera, though a news ticker ran at the bottom, rehashing the events of the morning. "We are told that Homeland Security, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service were involved in a joint investigation –"

"No, no…" Jimmy moaned softly. He wrapped his arms around himself, unconsciously rocking back and forth. "Oh, God, guys, please be safe –"

Then he jumped to his feet, looking wildly around the room. His phone, where was his phone? He never called Tony while the team was working a case, he didn't want to be a distraction or give their secret away, but who could blame him for wanting to make sure the team was okay, after something like this? He could even call one of the others – not Gibbs, he wasn't that brave, even now – McGee, maybe. Even without knowing about their relationship, McGee would understand, and wouldn't mind sparing just a moment to reassure Jimmy that they were alive and well.

That was what he'd do. He'd call McGee, and everything would be okay. It had to be. If only he could find his phone!

A shift in sound from the TV turned his attention back to the screen.

Apparently ZNN had more camera crews at the scene; they were cycling through views from several different angles. First, the camera with the brunette; she was speaking into her microphone, but her words really didn't register in Jimmy's mind. That was because while she spoke, they'd cut to another camera, another angle – and that view hit Jimmy like a blow to the stomach.

The MCRT van had been far enough away from the building that it had survived the explosion mostly intact. The force of the blast had shattered the windows, but otherwise it looked okay. Just beyond the van, Jimmy could see where a dark sedan, parked closer to the building, had been blown onto its side. The view he had was of the roof of the car; he wasn't able to see an agency logo. Then the scene changed again.

Floodlights were being set up and aimed at a section of the building – or at least that was what it had been, before the explosion reduced it to a pile of rubble. Though dawn couldn't be too far off, Jimmy was grateful, and hopeful, too, to see that they weren't waiting. A rescue operation would begin right away; a recovery operation would wait until it was light out, for the safety of the workers. That meant there was hope that someone in there was alive.

The scene changed again: Rescue operations continued on the overpass, though the immediate danger had passed. Vehicles had been pulled back from the unstable area near the hole, and now local LEOs were directing an orderly evacuation on foot. The scene changed: Jimmy was now looking at the collapsed section of the overpass, from ground level. He could see at least two cars in the rubble, and firefighters were climbing through the mess to reach them.

The scene changed: Covered stretchers were being carried away from the destroyed building. Jimmy swallowed hard. It was one thing to know that there would be casualties, but quite another to see it, to _watch_ the body count on live TV –

Wait. Jimmy shook his head hard and lunged for the remote control, praying that he really hadn't seen…

Jimmy had splurged a little bit on his last birthday and added TiVo to his cable package. Usually this meant that he could keep up with a few TV shows, even on his crazy schedule. Tonight, it meant that he could go back and see that camera shot again. He almost didn't want to, but he had to know –

– that he was right.

The second stretcher was being carried by a firefighter and a man in an FBI jacket. The FBI agent was in the lead, walking backward, and he stumbled on a bit of rubble. His stumble jarred the stretcher, and the body's left arm slipped from the stretcher to dangle almost to the ground. The firefighter was quick to stop and lift the arm back to the stretcher, under the sheet, but it only took Jimmy a split second to see one critical detail. It took longer for its meaning to fully register, but when it did…

The arm had been wearing a watch. A watch with an orange watchband. Gibbs' orange watchband. Gibbs' arm.

Gibbs. On the stretcher. The covered stretcher. Gibbs.

Gibbs was dead.

Jimmy started to shake, and couldn't stop. He was afraid to look at the screen; he was afraid to look away. He sat huddled on the floor in front of the TV, knees drawn to his chest and arms wrapped around his legs, staring unblinking at the screen while the horrifying images seared themselves into his mind.

It was amazing how well TV cameras could zoom in on something happening dozens of yards away. Or maybe the ZNN camera operators had slipped past the crowd control barriers. Jimmy, and millions of viewers around the world, saw the response to the disaster in excruciating detail. Occasionally the network pulled back to the less-explicit aerial view, but mostly they showed whatever they could get a camera near enough to film, with little to no filtering.

Thus, Jimmy saw when rescue workers broke through a mound of rubble into a protected pocket created by part of the wall that was still standing – only to find several badly burned bodies. The camera operator quickly zoomed out, but the wonders of digital technology were mercilessly on Jimmy's side. Rewinding the image, Jimmy paused on the clearest frame he could find and hesitantly leaned forward to examine the picture. One of the bodies wore an NCIS vest. He mentally compared the body's proportions to those of the agents he knew; then he spotted a familiar pair of brown leather boots. Tears blurred his vision, hiding further details, but he did not wipe them away. He didn't want to remember Ziva David that way.

Jimmy reached out blindly and fumbled until he found the power button. The TV went dark; the room was mostly silent, except for the sobbing coming from the young man. He hid his head in his arms, as he tried to hide from the realization that threatened to steal away his last remaining threads of sanity. But there was no hiding from this, and finally, Jimmy had to face reality.

And the reality was that with two of the MCRT dead, the chances of the other two surviving were slim to none.

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><p>Bonus points if you recognize the infomercial!<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

_February 5, 2011 – 5:28am_

"I can't do this." The sound of his own voice, strained with emotion, startled Jimmy. He hadn't meant to speak, but now that he had, the words started tumbling out. "I can't do this. I can't just sit here and watch this –"

Jimmy's voice broke in a sob; but he pulled himself to his feet, struggling to get himself under control as he stumbled into the bedroom. "I can't stay here," he whispered as he searched the room for his sneakers. "I need to be there. I'll tell them I was called in. I'm surprised I haven't been already. It's not like –" his voice caught in his throat, and more tears slipped down his cheeks. "It's not like we're not needed tonight," he finished quietly, glad there was no one around to hear.

The ZNN website had a map of the area, showing the suggested detour around the destroyed overpass. Jimmy quickly scribbled directions, trying to choose a route that would let him avoid most of the traffic. He would have to park several blocks away and walk, but that would hopefully make it easier to avoid the security around the perimeter for as long as possible.

The sky was transitioning from total darkness to just the faintest hint of light as Jimmy drove. He kept the radio on, but turned down low. He needed to hear if there were any new developments, but he couldn't stand to hear them repeating the same speculations over and over.

Finally he was close enough to park. He grabbed his NCIS cap from the passenger seat and pulled it on, realizing – too late – that he wasn't dressed as he usually would be for a crime scene. If he'd really been called in, he probably would have gone to the office first and changed into the coveralls that he and Ducky usually wore. He hoped that whoever was working security would believe him despite the fact that he pretty much looked like just another gawker.

Hands stuffed in his pockets to keep them warm, Jimmy quickly walked the seven blocks to where the street was blocked off. He found that he needn't have worried about how he looked. The perimeter guard who stopped him – a uniformed police officer – quickly looked over the ID that Jimmy presented, then motioned him through.

"The feds are set up near the northwest corner," the officer informed him, pointing toward one of the areas lit by floodlights. "You'll want to check in with them, see where they need you. I gotta warn you, it's not a pretty sight over there."

Jimmy swallowed hard and tried to keep his professional mask in place. Truthfully, even the goriest crime scenes usually didn't faze him, but it was a completely different matter when the victims were people he knew, people he'd worked with for years. He thanked the officer, then turned and forced himself to walk slowly toward the group of people gathered under the floodlights. It wouldn't do to run headlong into someone, particularly an armed and upset federal agent.

"Mr. Palmer!"

Jimmy looked up, then, forgetting his earlier resolution, rushed toward the figure in coveralls who had shouted his name.

"Doctor Mallard!"

"Mr. Palmer, what are you doing here?" Ducky grabbed the younger man's shoulders, looking worriedly at his assistant's pale face.

"I – I saw it on the news," Jimmy stammered. "They said NCIS was involved, and I know Tony got called in earlier tonight, and I saw –" He bit back his next words, realizing that Ducky might not yet know about the death of his friend.

"Oh, Jimmy." The use of his first name was not lost on Jimmy; usually Ducky referred to him as Mr. Palmer, out of respect, just as Jimmy called him Dr. Mallard rather than by his nickname. Ducky suddenly seemed older, more tired. "I'm so sorry. I have some very bad news –"

Jimmy's stomach lurched; his vision blurred. The next thing he knew, he was on his knees, doubled over, while Ducky had his arms wrapped around him to keep his head from hitting the ground.

"They're still looking for Anthony and Timothy, and for Agent Fornell's team," Ducky was saying as he rubbed Jimmy's back soothingly, seeming far more like the younger man's father than his supervisor right now. "They – found Jethro. He's…"

"I know. I saw." Jimmy rocked back on his heels so he could look at his mentor. He felt ashamed for his brief fainting spell – as if he had any control over it – while Ducky was carrying on so bravely after losing his friend of several years. "Doctor Mallard, I'm so sorry –"

Ducky patted his shoulder. "Thank you, Jimmy." There was a glint of tears in his eyes, but he continued on. "There were several… unidentified bodies discovered some time ago. We – we believe one of them to have been Ziva."

"I – it was her, Doctor Mallard. I saw her on TV."

"How do you know, Palmer?" This was a different voice. Both Jimmy and Ducky looked up to see a haggard Director Vance looking down at them.

"I – I saw her boots, Director." Normally he would have been blushing; but this situation was anything but normal. "I asked her once where she got them. They're hand made, from Israel. I'd – I'd know those boots anywhere."

Vance sighed and hunkered down in front of them. "There's no need for either of you to be here," he said, not unkindly. "Why don't you go home. I'll call –"

"I can't, Director. Please –" Jimmy was grateful, then, for Ducky's arms around him, else he might have grabbed the director by his jacket. "I have to stay. I can't –" His throat tightened painfully on the words. _I can't leave until they find Tony._

Ducky squeezed his arm gently as he spoke to the director. "I can't leave either, Director. Not while there's a chance…" He left the remainder of the sentence unsaid; instead, he continued, "Jethro is – was – a Marine. He would never leave a man behind, but… he can't be here for them now." The ragged breath he drew prompted Jimmy to slip his own arm around the older man's shoulders. "Let us stay, Director. For Anthony and Timothy – and for Jethro."

Vance pressed his lips together as he thought. "All right," he finally conceded. "You can stay. Just stay back here, where it's safe." He pushed himself to his feet, then looked back down at the two autopsy workers. "But you know Gibbs is still here, Doctor. He won't leave til they're found." With those words, he walked away, leaving them supporting each other on the rubble-strewn ground.

Ducky gently shook Jimmy's shoulder. "Come on, lad." He stood and offered his hand to Jimmy, who allowed himself to be helped to his feet. Ducky steered him toward the far edge of the area. "We'll be out of the way over here."

Jimmy obediently sat down on the ground where Ducky indicated. "I'm sorry, Doctor," he apologized as he watched Ducky lower himself to the ground next to him. "You don't have to stay here and babysit me."

Ducky noticed that Jimmy's eyes flickered to the NCIS coveralls he was wearing. "I'm not here officially, Jimmy," he explained. "I keep one of these in my car, for emergencies. I suspect you did the same thing I did and told the police you'd been called in to work the scene?" At Jimmy's nod, he chuckled humorlessly. "I had every intention of doing so, too, until that insufferable bastard from Homeland Security showed up."

"They're taking over the scene?"

"Yes. This has been officially declared a terrorist attack." Ducky shook his head sadly. "I don't know if they were hoping to lure in so many law enforcement agents, or if they were just collateral damage, but –"

A commotion from one of the groups of rescue workers caught their attention, silencing Ducky mid-sentence. Jimmy leaned forward, straining to make sense of all the shouting. At this distance, most of it was unintelligible; but when he heard a plaintive cry for a medic, he didn't think, he just acted. Scrambling to his feet, he raced toward the sound, Ducky following not far behind.

A paramedic had already reached the scene by the time Jimmy and Ducky arrived. She was assessing the injuries of a prone man who had just been pulled from the rubble, and from the looks of it, she was wishing she had at least three extra hands.

Jimmy stepped forward to offer his help, but stopped short when he got his first glimpse of the man's face.

"Agent Fornell!"

Ducky pushed past Jimmy and addressed the paramedic. "I'm a medical examiner, and this is my assistant. May we be of assistance?"

The woman looked up. She had unruly, short-cropped blonde hair and bright green eyes. "Yes, please," she responded quickly, waving them over.

Working together, the three of them quickly bandaged the worst of the many lacerations on Fornell's arms and legs. More worrying was the large contusion on his head and the compound fracture of his lower right arm. Another paramedic arrived pulling a stretcher. Ducky and Jimmy helped immobilize Fornell's arm and transfer the unconscious agent to the stretcher. As the woman and her partner hurried their patient to a waiting ambulance, Jimmy stood and held out his hand, this time being the one to pull Ducky to his feet.

"Fornell's alive," Jimmy whispered, feeling that he'd witnessed a miracle.

"Yes, and his chances look good, all things considered," Ducky agreed. "Good work, Mr. Palmer –"

But Jimmy was no longer listening. In the intense concentration they'd put into assisting the paramedics, they hadn't heard when the rescue crew had unearthed more victims from the rubble just a few feet away. The bodies were carefully laid side by side, but not yet covered. A man in an FBI jacket was approaching with an armful of folded body bags, but it was too late.

Jimmy didn't realize he'd moved until he felt the rubble stabbing his knees as he collapsed to the ground next to the bodies of Tim McGee and Tony DiNozzo. He could feel Ducky's hands on his shoulders, trying to pull him back, but he resisted, unable to tear his eyes away. Both men, though covered in the dust that coated everything in the area, looked to be merely asleep; but Jimmy's experienced eye couldn't help but notice how deathly still they were. There was no lying to himself; he couldn't ignore the evidence before him.

"Abby," he whispered.

With a puzzled look, Ducky stopped trying to move him. "Jimmy?"

"Abby," he repeated. He kept staring at Tim, trying to avoid seeing his lover's body just inches away. "Someone needs to be with Abby. First Gibbs, now Tim – she's going to need someone with her."

"I know, Jimmy," Ducky said gently. "We'll be there for each other."

Jimmy nodded absently. He wasn't too sure how much good he was going to be for anyone, but he also knew that he wasn't the only one to lose a loved one tonight. Or, no – the sky was definitely growing lighter. This morning, then. He wasn't the only one to lose a loved one this morning.

Ducky tugged at his shoulder again, but Jimmy put his hand on top of the doctor's, silently asking him to wait. He closed his eyes, feeling the tears begin again. He took a deep breath. Then, tightening his grip on Ducky's hand, he opened his eyes and looked down.

In the cold light of dawn, Jimmy studied Tony's face. He had always loved seeing Tony's smile, hearing him laugh, even before he realized that he actually loved Tony himself. The senior field agent was the self-appointed clown of the group, but Jimmy had been privileged to see behind the mask. He's seen Tony's serious side, back when Gibbs went to Mexico and Tony'd had to lead the team. He'd seen Tony's vulnerable side then, too – the insecurity and self-doubt that being responsible for his people's lives brought out in him. Jimmy had known even then how rarely Tony showed that side of himself, and he'd been honored to be the one person that Tony turned to during that time.

Then later, much later, he'd discovered another side of Tony. The gentle, caring, loving side that Jimmy had always suspected was there. He'd seen some of it come out back when Tony was dating Jeanne, but never did he believe that he'd see Tony direct it toward him.

And now…

With his free hand, Jimmy pressed his fingertips to his lips, then pressed them to Tony's cold lips in the last kiss he would ever give the man he loved. He was dimly aware of the eyes watching him, but he didn't care. There was no longer a need for them to hide their relationship, after all. Gently, he touched the side of Tony's face, silently saying goodbye.

Ducky squeezed his shoulder, then gently pulled again. This time Jimmy didn't resist. He was beginning to feel light-headed, but was too numb to care. When Ducky pulled him to his feet, he felt the blood rush from his face. The view around him began to spin, then went dark; and Jimmy collapsed backward into Ducky's arms.

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><p>Thanks so much to all the readers who have sent reviews or set alerts for this story! It means a lot to know that you're enjoying it so far. :)<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry for the delay in posting - real life likes to get in the way sometimes. Here's two chapters today to make up for it.

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><p>Chapter Four<p>

_February 5, 2011 – 12:01am_

Jimmy awoke slowly, fighting consciousness every step of the way. He wasn't ready to wake up yet; he wasn't ready to face cold reality. He tried to empty his mind, to forget, but an avalanche of memories hovered just over him, threatening to fall; and he knew he couldn't put off much longer the memory of …

He rolled to his side and hid his head in his arms, curling in on himself in a familiar defensive posture. But nothing could shield the blows coming at him now, for they came from within his own mind. The bodies of his friends… Ducky's face as he begged Director Vance to let them stay… those images, and many that were far more graphic, from TV and from the scene of the disaster, assaulted Jimmy mercilessly.

But worst was the realization that he'd never see Tony again, never feel his arms around him, never again hear his voice… A sob escaped his lips; then, with a wail of anguish, Jimmy broke down and cried. He'd never felt so desolate – not when Michelle was shot, for their relationship had ended months before; not even when his father died, though he'd been just old enough to understand what death meant. This – it felt like a piece of Jimmy's soul had been ripped away, and he didn't know how he was supposed to face the rest of his life without –

The bed he was lying on shifted, and Jimmy had just enough awareness to wonder where he was and who'd put him to bed. Then a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind, and a familiar voice breathed in his ear –

"Jimmy? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Jimmy froze, hardly daring to believe what he'd just heard. He was afraid he was hallucinating, but the warm body pressed against his back felt real, as did the strong arms that held him tight. Slowly, holding his breath, he turned in those arms and opened his eyes –

And saw Tony's worried green eyes looking back at him.

Jimmy drew in a shaky breath. "Tony?" he whispered. He reached hesitantly for his lover, as if afraid the other man would vanish into insubstantial mist.

But instead of disappearing, Tony pulled him closer, pressing a soft kiss into his hair, as he had countless times before when Jimmy would wake him up. "What's wrong, Jimmy?" he asked, stroking his fingers across Jimmy's tear-streaked cheek. "I thought you were done having nightmares…?"

"I –" Jimmy shook his head; why did that seem so familiar? The image of Tony standing in the bedroom doorway asking that very question flashed into Jimmy's mind. It was followed by a succession of other images – Gibbs' watch, Ziva's burned body, Fornell being loaded onto a stretcher, Ducky's face, Tim, _Tony –_

A pained cry burst from his lips, and a moment later Jimmy's face was buried in Tony's shoulder, his arms wrapped tightly around the man he thought he'd lost forever.

"Shh, shh, it's okay," Tony murmured, rocking his lover gently in his arms. "I've got you, you're okay…"

Jimmy struggled to speak through the sobbing that he couldn't control. "I thought I'd lost you," he choked. "You, Tim, everyone – you were all –" He couldn't bring himself to finish, to say the word.

"Shh, Jimmy, no." Tony slid one hand under Jimmy's chin and forced the younger man's head up. "Look at me, Jimmy. I'm right here." He waited until Jimmy's hazel eyes met his. "It's okay, Jimmy. It was just a dream."

But Jimmy's eyes seemed to glaze over, as if what he saw in his mind's eye blocked his view of reality. Tony had seen him like this before; he knew what he needed to do. Reluctantly, he pulled himself free from Jimmy's tight embrace and sat up in the bed, then reached down and pulled Jimmy up with him. It was too easy for Jimmy to get caught up in his nightmares; what he needed was something to ground him in the real world.

Tony found their discarded clothes and quickly pulled his on, then coaxed Jimmy into getting dressed. Jimmy recognized the trick and tried to stay focused, but part of him still feared to accept that _this_, and not the other, was his reality. He was afraid that at any moment, Ducky would snap him out of this hallucination…

Tony took his hands and urged him to his feet, then led him out into the living room. Jimmy glanced toward the kitchen as he shuffled along after Tony and saw the dishes still stacked next to the sink, waiting for him to become desperate enough to wash them. He stopped and stared. He clearly remembered washing the dishes, but if they were still dirty…

"Jimmy?" Tony's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Come on…"

Jimmy let Tony guide him to the couch and push him down into a seated position, but his mind was still working on the puzzle –

The puzzle. The jigsaw puzzle that he'd been working on wasn't on the coffee table. Jimmy closed his eyes to better focus on the facts. If the puzzle wasn't here, the dishes were still dirty, and Tony really was here, then…

"Jimmy, talk to me." Jimmy opened his eyes to see Tony kneeling in front of him. Tony's hands came up to touch either side of Jimmy's face; he wouldn't allow Jimmy to turn away. "Tell me what's going on in there."

"It… it was a dream," Jimmy whispered, as if just coming to the realization. "I thought it was real… it _felt_ so real…"

Tony brushed back a bit of Jimmy's hair with gentle fingers. "Will you tell me about it?" he asked quietly.

Jimmy looked down at his hands as he thought back to _the dream, it was just a dream_. "You got called in to work, and I couldn't sleep. I – I swear I can remember every minute of it. I mean, I remember washing the dishes and cleaning the toilet –"

"Urgh, sounds like a nightmare to me," Tony teased, bringing a tiny smile to Jimmy's lips. But the smile faded as Jimmy continued, telling his lover about the news report that he'd seen, and all its gory details. By the time he reached the part about going to the scene and meeting up with Ducky, he'd started to shake; when he talked about helping with Fornell, his heart was racing and he was struggling for breath. He didn't want to remember the next part…

As bad as it was, Tony knew from Jimmy's reaction that the worst part was yet to come. He moved from the floor to the couch, where he could pull Jimmy up against him. He wanted to spare his lover, but he also knew that Jimmy needed to face his fear; so he decided on a compromise. "So how did I die?" he asked, cutting to the heart of it.

Jimmy flinched. "Asphyxia, I think. You and McGee both. There weren't any major wounds, but you were buried under part of the building, so…"

"And then?"

"And then I woke up."

"And I was right here… right?"

Jimmy nodded.

"It was just a dream, Jimmy, I promise." Tony gave him a little squeeze. "I'm still breathing."

Jimmy closed his eyes and leaned against Tony, trying to relax, though he couldn't quite ride himself of a lingering sense of unease. "I know it was a dream, but – but it was so vivid! And detailed. And –"

Tony silenced Jimmy with a finger pressed against his lips. "Let it go, Jimmy," he said firmly. "The longer you dwell on it, the longer it'll take to get past it." He sat up and searched for the remote control on the coffee table. "Let's find something else for you to focus on for a bit."

Jimmy smiled slightly. "It'll just be infomercials and crappy movies on." He didn't need the memory of his dream to tell him that; that's all that was ever on in the middle of the night, at least on the channels that made up his basic cable package.

"Then we'll find something else." Tony got up and went to the pile of DVDs on Jimmy's desk. He'd brought over a good supply a couple of weeks earlier, but work had been so busy that they hadn't had much time to watch together. "Let's see… have you seen _The Long Kiss Goodnight_?"

"Not yet."

"Good. We got Geena Davis as an assassin, and Samuel L. Jackson as… well, as a Samuel L. Jackson character. If that doesn't take your mind off things, I don't know what –"

In the bedroom, Tony's cell phone began to ring.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

_February 5, 2011 – 12:21am_

Tony rolled his eyes. "Here," he said, tossing the DVD case and the remote to Jimmy. "I hope that's not Gibbs," he muttered as he left the room to answer the phone.

Jimmy sat frozen on the couch. He'd caught the movie and the remote, but he'd been operating on automatic reflexes – the aversion to having his glasses broken by thrown objects was by now instinctive. He'd been starting to calm down, but the ringing of the phone had set his anxiety off again, and he couldn't stop it.

From the bedroom, he heard Tony's voice. "DiNozzo… What'd we get, Boss?"

Jimmy shook his head. No. No, he'd heard that opening line from Tony a thousand times. It didn't mean anything…

"Homeland? Seriously?"

That _wasn't_ something he'd heard a thousand times. Just once, in fact. Last night – or tonight, in his dream – or – or what?

"These are the weapons that disappeared from _our_ Marine bases?"

Now Jimmy was shaking again. No. This was impossible…

"Tonight?"

He was hyperventilating. A tiny part of his mind was insisting that no, this was a coincidence, or maybe he only_ thought_ he remembered this happening last ni- in his dream. But that logical part of him was drowned out by the panicked, screaming part of his mind that refused to listen to reason.

"Right. I'm on my way."

Jimmy launched himself from the couch, reaching the bedroom door just as Tony was coming out. They collided, Jimmy being unable to check his momentum in time, and the two of them stumbled until Tony fell backward onto the bed, pulling Jimmy down on top of him.

"Jimmy, what –?"

"You can't go." The words burst out of Jimmy, his voice higher than normal. He grabbed Tony's shoulders, his hazel eyes wide with fear. "Tony, you can't go. Call Gibbs back. You've got to stop them!"

"Whoa!" Tony sat up abruptly, breaking Jimmy's hold on him. The younger man almost tumbled off the bed, but Tony caught his arms and pulled him back. "Jimmy –"

"Tony, please! I know it sounds crazy –"

"Ya think?" Tony couldn't help the Gibbs impersonation, even in his concern for his lover.

"But this is exactly what happened! Gibbs called you because Homeland Security was getting involved in the case –"

"Jimmy –"

"And you left, and then the next time I saw you, you were dead! All of you!"

"Jimmy, _stop!_"

Shocked by Tony's yelling at him, Jimmy shut up. Tony noted the other man's too-rapid breathing, wide panicked eyes, and trembling hands, and lowered his voice so that he wouldn't agitate him any further.

"Jimmy." Tony held his arms out, moving slowly. "Jimmy, come here."

He waited until he had Jimmy securely in his arms before continuing, making sure to use a calm, quiet tone.

"Jimmy, listen to me." The younger man turned his face to Tony's. "It was a dream. No –" He put his fingers to Jimmy's lips to silence the protest. "Just listen. You've had nightmares before about me getting hurt. Yeah, this one sounds a little different, but it's still just a dream. You've heard us talking about this case all week, right?"

Jimmy nodded, pressing his lips together to hold back his words until Tony was finished.

"So it's not really that surprising that your mind took what you know about the case and turned it into a nightmare." Tony leaned closer and gently touched his lips to Jimmy's. "The problem is that your imagination is too damn good at coming up with realistic details. I mean, _I_ have bad dreams sometimes, but when I wake up I can see how ridiculous it is to be scared of Gibbs head-slapping me with Wolverine claws while wearing a bunny suit."

As he hoped, Tony's words brought out a tiny smile from Jimmy. The younger man was still tense, but his breathing had slowed somewhat and his eyes were no longer so crazed. The shaking hadn't abated, though, and Tony had to admit that he was a little worried about his lover.

"It's just –" Jimmy looked away, clearly trying to control his emotions. He ran his fingers through his hair, making the unruly curls even worse, and tried again. "It's just – Tony, I know you're right, it's the only thing that makes sense, but – but when I think of you going out there tonight – all I can see is –" He gestured helplessly, turning tear-filled eyes to look at Tony. "I just can't convince myself that you're not walking right into danger."

Tony touched Jimmy's face gently, brushing away the tears that escaped the corners of his eyes. "Jimmy, I'm sorry, but I have to go. I can't _not_ go, even if – especially if – it's dangerous. That's part of the job sometimes."

Jimmy nodded. "I know," he whispered. "I've always known that. And I'm not trying to stop you from doing your job. I'm not saying that I want you to always stay home and not get in harm's way – well, I mean, I don't _want_ you in harm's way, but I know it's going to happen and there's nothing I can do about it and I'm okay with that. I mean, I'm not okay with you being in danger, but I'm not – I – I'm not explaining this very well, am I?"

Tony smiled and shook his head. This was more like his Jimmy – stumbling over words, painfully trying to explain his feelings without sticking his foot in his mouth. "I think I know what you're saying," he reassured the younger man.

"I mean, I wouldn't normally try to stop you from going, even though we both know your job can be dangerous, but I know you'll always do your best to come back safe. It's just – I _know_ you're going to be in danger tonight. I can let you go when it's just a maybe, but –"

"Jimmy." Tony pulled his lover into a tight hug. Jimmy returned the embrace desperately, his whole body shivering. "Jimmy, I promise I'll be careful. But I have to go. Even if what you dreamed were to happen, I couldn't let the others go into something like that without being there to watch their six."

Jimmy closed his eyes tightly, trying to avoid seeing Tony's lifeless body laid out next to Tim's. "Just do me a favor, okay?" he asked.

"What?"

Jimmy felt slightly ridiculous for reacting the way he had, but he still couldn't shake off the conviction that he _knew_ what was going to happen that night. "Just – stay away from the –" _Crap, what was it called? _"– the Art Jones Building," he said. "And if you _do_ end up there – be careful." It wasn't much, he knew, but it was all he could do – especially since he couldn't _prove_ that anything was going to happen, not even to himself.

To his credit, Tony didn't point that out. He simply nodded and pulled back so he could meet Jimmy's eyes with his own. "I promise, Jimmy. If it'll make you feel better, I won't go anywhere near Rothstown tonight if I can help it." He tipped Jimmy's chin up with his hand and kissed him slowly, sealing the deal.

After that, Tony stepped into the bathroom for a quick two-minute shower – he _was_ capable of showering that quickly, though usually he preferred to take his time along with all the hot water – and Jimmy made his way into the kitchen. He looked again at the mound of dirty dishes, then shook his head and started Tony's coffee.

When Tony stepped out of the bedroom, fully dressed, Jimmy had the coffee and a slice of pizza ready for him. He watched with a worried expression he couldn't quite conceal as Tony pulled his coat on. "Be safe out there," he told the older man.

"I will." Tony took the coffee and pizza out of Jimmy's hands, but instead of heading for the door, he set them down on the coffee table instead. Then he took Jimmy into his arms. The younger man seemed to have regained control of himself, but Tony could still feel him trembling in his arms. "Are you gonna be okay?"

Jimmy nodded, though truthfully he wasn't really sure. He knew that Tony could tell, but there was nothing either of them could do about it now. Tony was already late enough that Gibbs was sure to tear him a new one when he got there, and Jimmy, feeling guilty that he was the cause, didn't want to make it worse. "I'll be alright," he told his lover. He tried to make himself sound a little more confident. "See you tonight?"

Tony kissed him, hard. "I'll be home as soon as I can," he promised. Then he let Jimmy go and turned to pick up his coffee and pizza. "Thanks," he said, holding up the food. "I love you."

Jimmy opened the door. "I love you, too." His eyes followed Tony down the hall, until he was out of sight.

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><p>Jimmy closed the door and leaned against it; then, his legs gave out and he slid down the door until he found himself sitting on the floor. He wrapped his arms around himself to try to still their shaking, staring unseeing at the room before him.<p>

"This is stupid," he told himself. "It was a dream. Just a dream. Just a really, _really_ vivid dream. That's all it was. Seriously, Palmer – do you think you're psychic?"

_No_, he answered himself in his head. _I _think_ I was really there. But that's impossible – so now I think I might be going crazy instead…_

His eyes were drawn to the clock on the DVD player. 12:40. Tony had gotten a much later start tonight than he had before – in the dream. Well, in the dream, Tony didn't have to deal with his bedmate waking up from the dream, because it _was_ the dream.

Jimmy closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the door. "I thought I was done having nightmares," he whispered miserably.


	6. Chapter 6

Sorry for the huge delay - life keeps getting in the way of my fun. I won't be able to post for the rest of the weekend, either, so here's three chapters at once to make up for it. Enjoy!

A/N: Remember how I said there was supposed to be a story in between _In the Closet_ and this one, but it's not posted because I can't get it right? This chapter references that story. I tried to write this so you wouldn't have to have read that story to understand, but if I haven't done a good enough job, just let me know.

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><p>Chapter Six<p>

_February 5, 2011 – 12:42am_

Though his eyes were tired from crying, Jimmy knew it was going to be hours before he could even think about going back to bed. _At least it's Saturday – still, or again, or whatever,_ he thought. He opened his eyes and glanced toward the kitchen, then shook his head and closed them again. _Even if I didn't really do them, I refuse to wash all those dishes two nights in a row, dream or no dream._

Sitting on the floor staring at the insides of his eyelids, Jimmy had no sense of the passage of time. He was trying to empty his mind, the way he'd learned years ago in a college class on relaxation, but he was having mixed results. He didn't want to think about the dream, but thinking about not wanting to think about the dream made him think about the dream, which he didn't want to think about. He felt like he was chasing his own tail – a particularly apt description, he thought, since neither the dream nor the tail existed anywhere but in his own mind.

He was both annoyed and a little bit concerned that despite his efforts, the sense of anxiety was increasing again. As soon as he thought that, he became aware that he was still trembling, and both his pulse and his respiration began to accelerate.

_Panic attack_. He recognized the symptoms, but that knowledge did nothing to help him. He'd had panic attacks before, but not for quite some time until just recently – and he'd had Tony there to help talk him through most of the recent attacks. Now, Tony was gone – and might never come back –

A knock on the door he was leaning against startled the already upset young man. He shot to his feet, but the indeterminate amount of time he'd spent huddled on the cold, hard floor caused his legs to cramp, and he immediately collapsed to his knees. The thud as he hit the floor must have been audible through the door, because Jimmy heard his unknown visitor try the door handle, only to find it locked. A moment later, he heard a familiar voice call through the door. "Mr. Palmer? Are you alright?"

"Doctor Mallard?" Jimmy used the door handle to help pull himself upright again. He glanced down out of habit to make sure he was properly clothed before unlocking the door and opening it to admit the older doctor.

Ducky wasn't wearing his NCIS coveralls tonight, Jimmy was surprised to see, but instead had on a light grey sweater with dark slacks. He was, however, carrying his emergency medical bag in one hand.

"D-doctor Mallard?" Jimmy repeated once his supervisor was inside and had set the bag on the floor. "W-what are you doing here at" – he checked the clock – "one thirty in the morning?"

Ducky looked him up and down before replying, and Jimmy flushed when he realized how he must look – red-rimmed eyes, hair sticking up in all directions, pale and – damn it! – still shaking.

"Anthony is very worried about you, Mr. Palmer. I thought perhaps he was overreacting when he called me, but now I'm glad I listened to him." Ducky took Jimmy's arm and led him over to the couch, where he pushed the younger man down. "Where do you keep your glucose meter?"

"Wh-what?"

"Your glucose meter, Mr. Palmer," Ducky repeated patiently. "I want to test your blood glucose levels."

"Oh! Uh, bedroom nightstand." Jimmy blushed, not able to remember if he and Tony had remembered to put away – "I'll get it," he blurted, starting to stand.

Ducky pushed him back down. "Stay still please, Mr. Palmer. I'll get it." He noted Jimmy's red face and added, "I'm sure I won't see anything I haven't before." He paused a moment at the door. "Probably," he concluded, and stepped inside.

He was back a moment later, and if he'd seen anything inappropriate, Jimmy couldn't see any reaction to it in his mentor's face. Ducky had Jimmy's glucose meter and test strips in hand; and when Jimmy offered to do it himself, Ducky flatly refused.

"You may not be aware, Mr. Palmer," Ducky told him as the older man took a seat on the couch next to him, "but to put it bluntly, you look like hell. Just sit back and relax, and I'll be done in a moment."

Jimmy leaned back against the couch cushions, but that was as far as he could go in following Ducky's instructions – he couldn't relax now if his life depended on it. He held still while Ducky pricked his finger for the blood sample he needed, but as soon as Ducky let him go, Jimmy was up and pacing the room.

"A little low, but nowhere near what I was expecting, given Anthony's story and the state of agitation you've worked yourself into." Ducky had to twist his upper body around to find Jimmy, who had moved to the window and was staring out into the darkness. The younger man had his arms wrapped around his chest, the fingers of his right hand tapping the opposite shoulder absently. "Mr. Palmer, will you please come sit down and tell me what's bothering you?"

For a moment, Ducky thought that Jimmy hadn't heard. Then Jimmy turned away from the window and slowly made his way back to the couch, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor.

"Anthony told me you've been having some bad dreams lately," Ducky prompted his assistant once it became clear that Jimmy wasn't going to start on his own.

Jimmy nodded, but otherwise didn't respond. Ducky sighed; apparently he was going to have to do most of the work in this conversation.

"You know, I once had a problem with nightmares myself," he began, keeping a close eye on his assistant. "It started many years ago, when I was not long out of medical school. I lost a patient, in rather tragic circumstances, and for some reason, that one death stuck with me like nothing else had. I started having dreams where the young man would open his eyes on the operating table and ask me why I allowed him to die. After a while, the guilt I was feeling was so overwhelming that in my dreams, the boy started chasing me with a knife, trying to kill me so that I, too, would exist only in other people's dreams.

"I kept it to myself for years. But I finally talked to someone, a friend, years later about the nightmares. They would periodically return and plague my sleep for several nights, and as time went on, they became distorted."

Jimmy had settled down somewhat and was listening intently as Ducky spoke. For a man who would take any opportunity to tell tales of his life experiences, Ducky could be an amazingly private person. He'd talk about people he'd known, what he'd seen, what he'd done – but rarely did he discuss his innermost feelings. Jimmy truly enjoyed most of Ducky's stories, but tonight he was captivated.

"It happened that I was sharing a hotel room with a colleague on a – a business trip, shall we say. Now, I pride myself on being a considerate roommate, so you can imagine my mortification when I woke the poor fellow up, screaming about floating scalpels and – I'm not even sure what else I said." Ducky shared an embarrassed grin with Jimmy. "There was certainly no way I could pretend that nothing was wrong, after that. So I told him about the dream, and where it came from – and strangely, I haven't had it since."

Jimmy looked down, his smile fading. "I have talked about it with Tony. And I thought it was gone, but it came back. But like you said, distorted, way beyond what it used to be."

Ducky placed a comforting hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "Perhaps it would be helpful for you to discuss it with… someone other than the person who is the focal point of the nightmares."

Jimmy looked up, surprised. "He told you?"

"In very general terms, yes. But why don't you start at the beginning?"

Jimmy nodded and took a deep breath. Clearly there was no getting out of this, so he may as well get on with it. "I was fine at first, after Tony and I were kidnapped. It wasn't until it was officially classified as a cold case that I started having nightmares…"

So Jimmy talked about the dreams he'd had weeks ago, which featured their escaped kidnapper coming back and torturing Tony while Jimmy was helpless to stop it. While he spoke, Ducky carefully studied his assistant. The exercise in memory recall actually seemed to steady his nerves a bit; he spoke in his normal tones, at something like a reasonable speed – this was Jimmy, after all. He even managed a smile and a self-deprecating laugh when he related how Tony had threatened to throw a glass of cold water on him one night. But when he turned his attention to the events of _this_ night…

"Doctor Mallard, I know how this sounds," Jimmy said. His voice sounded tired; he'd already told this story to Tony, not to mention all the times he'd been over it in his own mind. "I'm not surprised Tony told you I'm going crazy –"

"Mr. Palmer, he said no such –"

"– and maybe I am, but… I remembered every word of that phone conversation, perfectly, and I –"

"Well, déjà vu –"

"It was not déjà vu!" Jimmy leaned forward, looking intently at his mentor's face. "I was there!"

"And you claim that I was there also, Mr. Palmer, and yet I can assure you I was not."

Jimmy allowed himself to fall back against the couch cushions. "I know," he said. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. "I said it doesn't make any sense, but –"

"Jimmy." The use of his first name made the young man look up in surprise. Ducky was looking at him, concern etched on his face. "Are you sure you can handle being… involved… with a federal agent? Anthony's work puts him in considerable danger on a regular basis –"

"I know, I know." Jimmy waved one hand as if to dismiss his mentor's arguments. "I've thought about it a lot, Doctor Mallard. I know something could happen to Tony, but that doesn't change how I feel about him. I know I could lose him to something out there" – he waved his hand again, indicating the world beyond the walls of his apartment – "but that's not a sure thing. But if I leave him because I _might_ lose him, then I _have_ lost him, for sure. I'm willing to accept the risk of maybe losing him, so I don't lose what I have now."

Jimmy was afraid that he wasn't expressing himself very clearly – he was as well-known for convoluted explanations as Ducky was for long, rambling stories – but the older man was nodding thoughtfully as Jimmy finished.

"Very well, Mr. Palmer. I respect your decision, and I admire you for your courage and dedication to Anthony." Ducky stood and stretched, then looked toward the kitchen. "I'd like to continue our discussion, but I find my throat is a bit dry. Shall I make us something to drink?" He didn't wait on Jimmy's answer, but went on into the kitchen, motioning Jimmy back when the younger man started to follow. "How does some hot chocolate sound?"

"Er… okay."

The drink that Ducky handed him a few minutes later, however, was nothing like the hot chocolate normally made in that kitchen. Jimmy took a drink as normal, and was already starting to swallow when the taste of alcohol finally registered.

"Doctor Mallard!" he exclaimed after he'd managed to choke down the mouthful of liquid. He hadn't sprayed it across the room, but it was a close call. "_What_ did you put in this?"

Ducky settled back down on the couch with a mug of his own. "Just a little something to calm your nerves, Mr. Palmer." When Jimmy made as if to protest, the older man gave him a _look_ over the rim of his glasses. "Drink up, lad."

Cautiously, Jimmy took another drink. It wasn't as bad, now that he was prepared for it. He wrapped his hands around the warm mug – funny, how he hadn't noticed how cold his hands were – and closed his eyes, trying to think of something to say to lessen Ducky's concern for him.

"I'm – not usually like this," he said, somewhat apologetically, picking up from their earlier conversation.

"I know that, Mr. Palmer," Ducky reassured him, sipping slowly from his own mug. "And I believe Anthony knows that as well, else he would not have been so worried about you this evening."

"I'm not so sure," Jimmy admitted. Somehow, it seemed so much easier to admit his lesser fears, after having already made a fool out of himself over the nightmare. He was still trying hard to convince himself that was all it was.

"Mr. Palmer?" Ducky prodded when Jimmy didn't continue.

"I –" Jimmy's face flushed red. "Just, after everything that's happened, I'm not really sure how Tony sees me. I mean, since we got together it seems like I've had more than my usual share of – of –" His eyes unfocused as he sought to express himself. "I mean, first we get kidnapped and I was totally worthless stuck in that closet with him, and then I started having nightmares and couldn't even sleep by myself for weeks –"

"Ah, if I may, Mr. Palmer," Ducky interrupted with an upraised hand. "It is my understanding that _you_ left the vehicle's license number on your phone, which led Jethro and the others to the house where you were being held."

"Well, yeah, but –"

"And it was thanks to your medical expertise that Anthony received the first aid he needed, was it not?"

"I –"

"I assure you, Mr. Palmer, that even if you choose to overlook those things, Anthony does not. And those qualities – the competence and the courage – that you showed are the qualities that Anthony sees when he looks at you. These intermittent inconveniences are simply temporary obstacles, and he knows that, even if you don't." Seeing that Jimmy still looked skeptical, Ducky tried another angle. "Mr. Palmer, you'd say Anthony is a very good agent, would you not?"

"Of course."

"Even though he allowed armed men to take both of you from that crime scene?"

"But that wasn't his fault! They attacked him from behind and knocked him out!"

"But as a federal agent guarding a crime scene, shouldn't he have been more aware of his surroundings?"

"No one's perfect, Doctor Mallard." Jimmy took another sip. Then he sighed. "And that's your point, isn't it."

A smile graced Ducky's face as he raised his mug in salute. "That's exactly my point, Mr. Palmer. Anthony doesn't expect perfection from you any more than you do from him. He loves you as you are. So stop fretting so much about it."

Jimmy nodded, but his thoughts were turned inward. He wasn't sure how the conversation had made it to this point. He didn't know what he should say, but to his relief, Ducky didn't press. The two men sat silently for a time, drinking adulterated hot chocolate, each lost in his own thoughts.

Jimmy wasn't sure when it happened, but at some point he became aware that Ducky had taken away his empty mug and tucked the blanket from the back of the couch around him. The young man lay curled up on his half of the couch, staring at the television without really seeing it. _I should turn the TV on, in case_ – He stopped that thought before it could finish. He hoped that the team would wrap up their case soon, so Tony could come home and tease him mercilessly for taking his dream so seriously.

Home. _"I'll be home as soon as I can,"_ Tony had said. Did that mean he was spending so much time at Jimmy's place that it was becoming his third home – his own apartment and the office being homes one and two, respectively. Did Tony even know what he'd said? Or did he mean it the way Jimmy had come to think of the word – that anywhere they could be together openly, without having to hide their relationship, was home?


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

_February 5, 2011 – 5:02am_

He didn't remember falling asleep, but the sound of a cell phone ringing incessantly finally pierced the fog that shrouded Jimmy's mind. He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly, trying to focus, until he realized that Ducky must have removed his glasses once he'd passed out.

"Of all the nights…" Jimmy heard Ducky muttering irritably. A moment later, his tone only slightly more civil, the older man answered his cell phone. "This is Doctor Mallard."

Jimmy's heart jumped in his chest. _This is it._ He didn't know how he knew, he just _knew._

"Robert, it's five in the bloody A.M.! What…?"

Jimmy rolled off the couch, hitting the floor on his knees. He grabbed for the remote on the coffee table and turned on the television, muting the sound for Ducky's sake as he paged through the channels to find ZNN.

Nothing showed yet on the screen – it was a stale report on the situation in Egypt, one that he remembered from –

_Dream or not, I lived through this once,_ Jimmy thought with a certainty that he'd been denying all night. _Please let it be different this time…_

He turned to look at Ducky, suddenly realizing that the older man had been silent too long. The doctor stood at the window, phone held to his ear, but Jimmy couldn't see his face.

"Yes, of course," Ducky finally said, in response to something the caller said to him. Jimmy recognized that tone – it was the worried, barely-clinging-to-hope tone that he'd heard from Ducky at the crime scene. "Yes. Thank you for calling, Robert. Thank you for telling me…" He lowered the phone, pressing END with a shaking hand.

Instantly Jimmy was on his feet, hurrying to his mentor. "Doctor Mallard?"

Ducky turned around, and Jimmy stopped short. He hadn't wanted to be right, he'd hoped like hell that he wasn't right, but he'd struggled to convince Tony and then Ducky because if he _was_ right, then something needed to be done to stop it. What he hadn't considered was what would happen when he did convince one of them – especially when it was already too late…

The stunned expression on Ducky's face made Jimmy wish he could crawl into a hole and never come out. The older man looked at him with blank eyes, his normal facility with words failing him.

"Doctor Mallard." Normally Jimmy would never dare, but tonight… He put his arm around the shorter man's shoulders and guided him to the couch, then urged him to sit. He sat as well, closer than he would normally with anyone other than Tony, but he couldn't bring himself to break the physical contact.

Ducky took a deep breath, his eyes fixed on the phone he still held in his hand. Then he exhaled and turned to look at his protégé. "I… think you already know what I'm about to tell you."

Jimmy felt the blood leave his face. "Who – who was that? Director Vance?"

Ducky shook his head. "No, that was Robert Miller, an old acquaintance of mine," he answered. "Robert has worked with the FBI for several years now. He and Jethro never got along, but…" His voice trailed off as mention of his friend reminded him of the reason for the call.

"What did he say?"

"He told me that a – a joint operation between several agencies went very badly tonight." Ducky gestured toward the television. "He wanted me to hear it from a friend before it hit the news, but it looks like he only just made it."

Jimmy turned to look and recognized the anchorwoman from the news reports. He had to know. Without daring to look at Ducky, he reached for the remote and turned the volume up.

"– hearing that a building and perhaps part of a nearby interstate have sustained damage. No word yet on the cause or the number of casualties –"

"Mr. Palmer."

"Yes, Doctor?" Jimmy whispered without turning around. He was pretty sure he could guess what was coming next, and he was afraid to face the accusations he could imagine running through Ducky's head. _How did you know? Why didn't you stop them? How could you let them go off to die like that?_

"Is this similar to what you saw before?"

He nodded. "Every word is the same."

"We now have footage taken by a traffic helicopter –"

Ducky laid a gentle hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Jimmy, I am so sorry."

Jimmy moved to cover Ducky's hand on his shoulder with his own. His eyes blurred with tears as he remembered the two of them kneeling next to Tony's body, each trying to comfort the other with that same touch.

"– large section of the overpass has collapsed onto the roadway below. As you can see, rescue workers –"

Pulling off his glasses, Jimmy wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He glanced at the TV screen again as he replaced the glasses.

"– being shut down from exit 74 to Virginia DOT is asking –"

"Wait." Jimmy grabbed for the remote control again. Had he really seen – or rather, had he really _not_ seen…?

"Mr. Palmer?"

Jimmy bit his lower lip as he rewound the image, then paused on a clear shot of the interstate. He stared at it for a moment, then squeezed his eyes shut, one hand going to his forehead as he struggled to remember…

"It's not the same." He switched the TV back to real-time video. The anchorwoman was explaining the suggested routes to take to avoid the disaster area, but he ignored her – he already knew how to get where he needed to go – and turned to Ducky. "Doctor Mallard, it's not the same! Something changed!"

"Mr. Palmer, what –"

"There was a car, Doctor." Jimmy rewound the image again to explain. "Right here" – he pointed to the edge of the roadway, just before the gaping hole – "right here, there was a car. They had to pull it back from the edge with cables. Something changed, Doctor! It's not the same!"

Jimmy jumped to his feet. He couldn't sit still, he couldn't stand to just sit here and – "We have to go, Doctor! We have to go find out!"

Ducky rose slowly from the couch. His movements were those of an old, tired man, not the energetic fellow that Jimmy worked with every day. He reached out and took Jimmy by the shoulders, forcing him to stand still.

"Jimmy, lad –" He sighed and looked sadly into Jimmy's eyes. "Please, don't get your hopes up. We both know that they were very likely a part of whatever operation this was. Jethro isn't the kind of man to let others take risks in his place, and Anthony, Timothy, and Ziva would not let him go without backup. Robert said that there were several agents inside when the building exploded. We won't know –"

"Unless we go there and find out." Jimmy turned pleading eyes on his mentor. "Please, Doctor Mallard. I can't stay here. You can stay if you want, but I'm going. I have to."

Ducky shook his head. "Absolutely not." Jimmy started to protest, but Ducky held up a hand. "Not without me, you're not," he amended. He let Jimmy go and turned to find his coat. "I don't think we'll be able to get close, but –"

"Yes, we will," Jimmy interrupted. "We'll tell them we got called in to work the scene. They'll be too busy to stop and check – especially if you're wearing the coveralls you keep stashed in your car."

Ducky looked at him with narrowed eyes, but didn't question how Jimmy knew what was in his car. Instead, he pointed out that while they might let him in, "they're certainly not going to let in a man wearing pajama bottoms and a Power Rangers t-shirt."

Jimmy's face turned red as he looked down at his attire. Tony liked to tease him about the old shirts he kept to sleep in – Power Rangers, Bart Simpson, and a wide range of other cartoon heroes from his childhood were represented in worn and faded cotton in Jimmy's bottom drawer. Jimmy had to agree with Ducky. Sometimes he had a hard enough time convincing people that he should be allowed at a crime scene even in official NCIS attire; he didn't need to make it easier for security to throw him out.

"You change, Mr. Palmer, into something a tad more – grown-up, shall we say." Ducky reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his keys. "I'll get what I need from the Morgan and come right back."

"Do you want me to drive, Doctor Mallard?" Jimmy called as he headed into the bedroom.

"Not on your life, Mr. Palmer." As Jimmy pulled his t-shirt over his head, he could have sworn he heard Ducky mutter, "I want my car in one piece," just as the door closed behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

_February 5, 2011 – 5:43am_

Being a passenger on what Jimmy had always thought of as the "driver's side" was rather disconcerting, but he imagined it was probably easier over in the UK, where he'd also be on the other side of the road – that is, _not_ on the same side of the car as the oncoming traffic. He wondered briefly how Ducky could stand the same situation in reverse, especially given Jimmy's sometimes erratic driving. Then he wondered whether Ducky had simply been saving it all up for one big payback ride. If it hadn't been for the seriousness of the situation, he thought, that ride could have been tonight.

"You can park over here, Doctor," Jimmy directed, pointing toward an all-too-familiar parking lot several blocks down from the crime scene. It helped to think of it as just a crime scene, and not –

_Focus, Palmer. Fall apart later. For now, just do what you have to do._

It was a different police officer who approached them – _it's earlier, probably that guy hasn't got here yet, or is doing something else_ – but like the other, he waved them through once he saw their credentials.

"Your director is running around somewhere over there," the man said, pointing toward the northwest corner of the parking lot.

"Thank you, Officer Ames," Ducky said politely as they ducked under the yellow tape. They moved slowly toward the indicated area, Jimmy's eyes scanning the scene for any details that seemed out of place…

_The MCRT van is farther away. That car is still on its side where it got blown over, though. Oh, it's FBI. Wonder if it's Fornell's…_

Jimmy's head whipped around, toward the section of building where Fornell had been found, and after him, Tim and Tony. But rescue operations had barely begun; they'd hardly had a chance to start clearing away the rubble – and the ruins looked different, too, not the same shape at all… he wasn't even sure he was looking at the right spot, now…

"Doctor Mallard, what are you and Palmer doing here?" Leon Vance's voice startled Jimmy from his preoccupation.

To his relief, Ducky said nothing about his dream, or premonition, or whatever it was. _Of course not; we don't have time to waste looking for straightjackets._ Instead, he told Vance about the phone call he'd received.

"And you, Palmer?"

Vance's question took Jimmy by surprise; he was used to being ignored by the NCIS director. "I, uh, I –" he stammered, trying to come up with something plausible. "I saw it on TV," he blurted. Well, it was true, anyway, if not the full truth.

"I picked him up on my way." Ducky covered smoothly for him. "Director – what news do we have?"

Vance's eyes closed briefly as he shook his head. "Nothing, yet," he confessed. "The last thing they got through the microphones was that all the doors were wired with explosives. They were going in through one of the windows instead. They made it inside safely, but then – something set off the explosives."

Jimmy's mouth went dry. "By 'them,' you mean Gibbs' team?" he asked.

"And Fornell's, and a team of ATF agents," Vance confirmed. "Homeland Security was coordinating from outside." His voice went flat on that line.

Jimmy let the unspoken accusation go; he wasn't interested in playing the blame game, especially now. Instead, he turned the discussion back to _his_ top priority. "Director, what can we do to help?"

"At the moment, nothing," Vance told them. "FBI has the crime scene for now, but Homeland has been pushing to have this declared a terrorist attack so they can take over. Even ATF is trying to get a piece of the action. The DoD is breathing down everyone's necks, and at the moment, we're in the doghouse. Whoever gets jurisdiction, it's not likely to be us."

"What do you mean, 'in the doghouse?'" Ducky asked.

"The other three have accused NCIS of withholding relevant information," Vance explained. "Apparently Gibbs knew that something was going on here, but didn't say anything until this location was discovered by other means. I'm hoping it's just that they didn't connect whatever they knew about this place with the stolen weapons case until the FBI made the connection for them."

_Or a skeptical NCIS agent didn't think about his crazy boyfriend's warning until he found out that he'd have to come here,_ Jimmy thought but wisely kept to himself. _Sounds like Tony tried to keep everyone safe, but without anything more concrete to go on, all he could do was what I did – pass on the warning and hope that people listen…_

"In any case, there's no need for either of you to be here," Vance continued. "Why don't you –"

"I'm not going home, Director," Jimmy interrupted. "Isn't there something we can do to help? Not with the – the evidence –" He swallowed hard, his chest tightening suddenly.

Ducky continued for him. "I'm sure there are paramedics on site, Director, but surely two more pairs of hands would be useful. Or –"

"No." Vance held up his hand to stop them. "NCIS can't risk any accusations of tampering with evidence, not after this. And I can't risk any more of my people. What's left of the building isn't stable; neither is the overpass. But –" He raised his voice to override their protests. "If you want to stay and wait with me, you're welcome to do so. But NCIS is strictly hands-off here." He fixed each of them with a stern glare. "Understood?"

Jimmy nodded, still unable to speak past the lump in his throat, and Ducky echoed the gesture. They followed Vance to where he had been setting up before their arrival – a black agency van full of electronic equipment. Jimmy thought he recognized the two men inside as MTAC technicians, but he wasn't sure. That was an area well beyond his clearance level.

Vance climbed into the back of the van, but invited Ducky and Jimmy to take the front seats. "It's better than sitting on the ground," he said, before turning to his techs for a situation report.

As he sat staring out the window, Jimmy felt a strange calm settle over him. None of this seemed real. He didn't know if it was shock, or if it was just that things were different from his – dream, or whatever it was. He knew he should be upset – hell, he knew he should be a total wreck by now – but he felt like he was cut off from his emotions. It would be bad later, he knew, when it all registered; but for now, it left his mind free to think, to examine the puzzle before him.

He didn't question how he'd known what was going to happen. That wasn't important now. He also refused to question his certainty that what he'd experienced before was what would have happened, had he not warned Tony. Somehow, what he'd said had changed Tony's actions, and that change had led to other changes. The only questions that concerned Jimmy now were: what impact did those changes have, and were they enough to have somehow saved his friends' lives?

Ducky, sitting in the passenger seat, turned from his own study of their surroundings to look at him. "Penny for your thoughts, Mr. Palmer?" he asked, keeping his voice low to avoid being overheard by the techs in the rear of the van.

"So much of this is familiar, but there are enough differences to make me wonder," Jimmy responded, also speaking quietly.

"Such as?"

"The building doesn't look right. I'm not a demolitions expert, but doesn't it look like the explosion started on one of the top floors, on the side closest to the highway?"

Ducky peered in the direction his assistant indicated. "I would have to concur with your assessment, in the absence of an expert's opinion," he agreed.

"Right. But – before, it seemed more like the source of the explosion was lower. You can still see that parts of the ground floor are intact – where the upper floors haven't collapsed on it – but before, there was a lot less of the lower walls left."

Ducky frowned in concentration. "Jimmy," he whispered. "I'm not yet ready to concede that you did dream the future – but even if you did, how could that change where a bomb was placed in this building?"

Jimmy ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "I don't know," he admitted. "None of this makes sense, Doctor Mallard, but I have to go with what I know – and I know that I've been through this before. Some of the details have changed, but for the most part it's all the same."

"So…" Ducky was hesitant to voice his next question. "Did anyone… survive, before?"

Absently, Jimmy nodded, his eyes shifting toward the section of the building where he thought they'd pulled Fornell out. It was hard to tell, now…

"Fornell did – or at least, he was alive when they loaded him into the ambulance." Jimmy closed his eyes then, remembering that what he'd next seen was the one thing he had hoped never to see in his life – and realizing that he was all too likely to see it again tonight. He'd had a chance to change the future, to save lives, but he hadn't tried hard enough, hadn't done anything right, and now it was too late… The calm he'd been feeling before evaporated, and guilt and despair flooded in to take its place.

Jimmy turned away, pretending to look out the driver's side window, hoping that Ducky couldn't see the tears pouring down his face. But he couldn't hide the way his shoulders shook with suppressed sobs – not that Ducky needed to see that to understand the pain his young assistant was in. The doctor had seen far too many grieving souls in his lifetime to not recognize the one before him now; and as he had so many times before, he set aside his own pain to offer comfort to another.

Jimmy felt a familiar hand on his shoulder, pulling him away from the window and into Ducky's arms. He pressed his hand against his mouth, fighting to stifle the pained cry that wanted to claw its way from his throat and escape. His whole body shook from the struggle, until Ducky pulled him close and whispered, "It's alright, son. Let it go."

Then there was no stopping it, no way to hold back any longer. With a strangled cry, Jimmy began to sob uncontrollably, sagging limply in Ducky's arms. The older man rocked him gently back and forth, his own tears falling silently, though no less painfully. Vance and the two MTAC techs watched them for a moment; then, as if acting on the same impulse, they turned back to their work, offering the grieving pair what small amount of privacy they could.


	9. Chapter 9

Okay, I lied, it'll be four chapters tonight. I wanted to get you through this next part.

* * *

><p>Chapter Nine<p>

_February 5, 2011 – 6:13am_

When Jimmy's sobs had finally stilled and Ducky's tears were drying on his cheeks, Vance moved forward and sat down behind the driver's seat. Ducky looked at the director; but Jimmy's face was turned away, hidden by the shield of Ducky's arms.

"Director?" Ducky asked quietly, knowing the man wasn't there just to offer his support.

"Homeland Security has the scene; it is now officially a terrorist attack," Vance said in a low tone. "The group responsible for the bomb has sent letters to all the major news networks, claiming responsibility and promising more to come."

Jimmy couldn't face them yet, but he had to know. "What's so important about this place?" he asked, his voice slightly muffled by Ducky's arms.

"It wasn't the building, it was the interstate that they were most interested in," Vance told them. "The building was just the easiest way for them to get the explosives in place without being seen. These guys knew exactly what they were doing – they must have set up the bomb after the second shift left for the night, and they had a remote trigger set up so they could detonate it at exactly the right time."

Ducky frowned. "The right time for what, Director?"

Vance sighed and shook his head, his eyes lowering briefly. "The right time for the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Pentagon to be passing over on the interstate."

"Is he –?"

"Yes, Doctor Mallard, he's dead, along with his driver and several members of his staff."

Still sniffling just a bit, Jimmy sat up and turned around so he could face the director. His face was pale, where it wasn't red from crying, but his expression was – focused was the best word Vance could come up with. "How did they know he'd be there when he was?"

"That's a good question, Mr. Palmer. I wish we knew." Vance rubbed his face with his hands, an unconscious gesture that spoke of how tired he was. "As of yesterday afternoon, he was supposed to be heading toward New York last night to see his sister in the hospital. Sometime yesterday evening, he changed his plans. And between 10pm and a quarter til 5, these guys managed to get everything set up here. How did they know?"

Jimmy wrapped his arms around himself, hands grasping opposite elbows in lieu of anything else to hold on to. He was reminded of the time when Gibbs had left for Mexico and left Tony in charge of the team. Tony had desperately needed someone outside the team to confide in and to bounce ideas off of, and had turned to Jimmy. That was when their friendship had started to grow, with Jimmy supporting Tony, and with Tony showing his trust in Jimmy's judgment.

But that wasn't what Jimmy was thinking of now. Instead, he was remembering how it felt to think like an agent would, however limited his experience in that area might be. He remembered how his ability to play devil's advocate had helped Tony think through the complexities of a crime until the answers became clearer. Though it hurt more than he could have imagined back then to step into that role at anyone's side other than Tony's, Jimmy turned his mind to the question at hand and began looking at the different angles that he could approach it from.

"Do we know for sure that the chairman was definitely the target?" he asked. "I know he's the one that they got," he continued, holding up a hand to forestall Vance's obvious response. "And Rule 39 applies there as much as anything else. But –"

Vance held up a hand of his own. "Wait, which one's 39?"

"'No such thing as coincidence,'" Ducky muttered.

Jimmy nodded, his eyes unfocused as he tried to pin down the ideas in his mind. "So we know a bomb got set up under that overpass, and we know that it was detonated when the chairman was driving over it. Well, being driven, anyway – I'm sure he doesn't drive himself –"

"Mr. Palmer."

Jimmy ducked his head. "Yes, thank you, Doctor." Despite the seriousness of the situation, Vance couldn't help but compare the two before him to Gibbs and DiNozzo, though the headslap was verbal in Ducky's case. "What I mean is, that interstate is a major route in to the Capitol for anyone who lives in this area. What if the plan was to set up here and wait for someone important to come along?"

"On a Saturday?" Vance sounded skeptical, but not in a 'you're out of your mind' kind of way; it was more a 'you may be on to something, can you drive your hypothesis around this obstacle?' kind of way.

"Or Sunday, or even Monday morning," Jimmy responded. "The news said that the offices would be closed all weekend. Whoever planned this had to know the shift schedule here, so they'd know when they'd have the greatest window of opportunity."

Vance nodded thoughtfully. "That's one possibility, Palmer. Of course they'll be looking at everyone connected with the businesses here to see if they're connected to the group as well. But how would they necessarily know when someone of interest was close enough? We're not talking about the Presidential motorcade, after all."

Jimmy drummed his fingers against his arms as he considered. "I guess that does rely on them having a spotter who knows what he's looking for," he conceded. "It can't have been on a timer, like you said, and just 'happened' to catch the chairman at the right time – Rule 39 sees to that. So maybe the chairman was the target, and someone on his staff – his personal staff, I mean, not the Pentagon Staff –"

"Palmer." This time it was Vance who steered Jimmy back on track.

"Right. – So someone who works for him is maybe keeping this group informed on his movements, and someone else works here, and they put two and two together – no, that just sounds ridiculous –"

"Director Vance." One of the MTAC techs quietly interrupted them. "I've got Assistant Director Morrow from Homeland for you." The man held out a headset.

As Vance took the headset and moved to the other end of the van, Jimmy suddenly realized that he'd been rambling on at the Director of NCIS, a man who'd been a capable field agent for years before he'd joined its administration. Part of him wanted to crawl under the seat of the van and hide, but he dismissed the idea on the grounds that Vance could have shut him up anytime he wanted. Everyone else did; there was no reason to think that Vance did not also have that skill.

It was several moments before Jimmy became aware of the fact that if he held his breath, he could faintly hear Vance's half of the conversation; but by that point, Vance was simply thanking the Assistant Director and assuring him that NCIS was at Homeland Security's disposal. As soon as that conversation was finished, the other tech was waving another headset at Vance.

"Reminds me of when Tony was carrying two cell phones," Jimmy commented quietly.

"Hush, Mr. Palmer."

Vance's responses this time were brief monosyllables so soft that neither Jimmy nor Ducky could make them out. But something in the set of the director's shoulders made Jimmy instantly wary. Whatever he was talking about, Jimmy was absolutely certain he wasn't going to like it.

Vance pulled the headset off and passed it to the techs without looking. He moved past them on his way to the front of the van; the look that the two techs gave their boss once his back was turned was one of worry, and pity.

His heart pounding in his chest, Jimmy opened his mouth to ask – but Ducky's gentle hand on his arm prompted him to shut it again and wait for Vance to speak.

"I wish I had better news," the director said, and Jimmy felt his stomach drop. "The rescue crews have found some of the agents who were inside when the bomb exploded. They – believe they've found the bodies of our team."

Both men picked up on the hesitation. "They believe, Director?" Ducky pressed.

Vance nodded. "They've asked me to come identify them."

"We're coming with you," Jimmy insisted.

"It's not good, Jimmy," Vance objected. "I know that of all of us, the two of you have seen more than your share, but trust me on this. You don't want to see them this way."

Jimmy closed his eyes, the image of Ziva's horribly burned body vivid in his mind. He understood where the director was coming from, but… "You're right, Director, I don't want to see it." He then opened his eyes and looked directly at the man. "But I have to. Please, Director. Tony –" his voice caught, and he had to swallow and try again. "Tony and I were breaking Rule 12."

Vance's brows furrowed as he searched his memory. "You were…?" His voice trailed off. He couldn't possibly be remembering the right rule – could he?

Ducky came to his rescue. "Yes, Director, Jimmy and Anthony have been together for several months now. Jethro didn't know, but I did."

Vance didn't attend the agency directors' card game just for the gossip; he had perfected his poker face years ago, and could pull it on at a moment's notice. This he did now, calmly returning Jimmy's gaze with an expressionless stare of his own as he considered. Finally, he nodded. "One condition. You two stay back until I've made the identification. And if I tell you to keep back, you don't come any closer. Trust me at least that much, alright?"

The two autopsy men nodded. Moments later, they were out of the van and following Vance across the rubble-strewn parking lot toward one of the banks of floodlights – a different area from before, Jimmy thought, though he wasn't completely sure. The altered pattern of the explosion's destructive force threw off his sense of direction and position; in the end, he put his memories of before out of his mind and trusted to the director to lead them through the mess.

When they reached the area illuminated by the lights, Vance directed them to wait while he went forward, alone, to speak with a group of FBI and Homeland Security agents. Stuffing his hands in his pockets to warm them, Jimmy looked at the ruins around him. _Such a waste,_ he found himself thinking. _Why do people think they can make the world better by destroying parts of it?_

"_You're expecting logical thinking from crazy people, Palmer,"_ Jimmy remembered Tony saying to him once. _"So who's crazier, them or you?"_

He didn't know, didn't understand, the drive that kept him going, that kept him focused on the bombing as if it were just another crime scene and not the end of his world. Every time he started falling apart, that drive pulled him back together, like an elastic band being snapped into place. He didn't understand it, not at all.

He glanced toward Vance and the agents. They were still standing in the same place, still talking. Why? Shouldn't they save whatever they were discussing until _after_ Vance had ID'd the bodies? Where were they, anyway?

Jimmy studied the area they were in. The rubble was as high as his hip in places, and strangely level. He couldn't believe the building had collapsed this uniformly; he was no expert, of course, but this just didn't look right. A quick look around showed him another, much larger, mound of rubble several feet outside the 'footprint' of the building. _So that was probably over here… _Jimmy slowly began piecing it together. _They dug down through the rubble here, and moved it over there as they went. Which meant that that stuff was on top of this flat area here. Then they stopped and called Vance over to identify bodies – only I can't see any bodies. Which means…_

The crumbled remains of the building before him took on a sinister aspect as Jimmy realized – _They were here. And the building collapsed here. On top of them. We won't – _He felt the blood rush from his face as he finally figured it out. _We won't find whole bodies here. That's why Vance isn't looking at the bodies. He's looking at –_

The shock hitting the rubble-strewn ground on his hands and knees jarred Jimmy back to his senses, and was loud enough to catch Ducky's attention as well.

"Mr. Palmer?" Ducky hurried to his assistant's side and knelt down carefully next to the younger man, who was apparently struggling to not vomit at the crime scene. "Jimmy, what is it?" he asked.

Jimmy didn't hear him. Now that he knew what he should be watching for, he lifted his head and looked again at the area illuminated by the floodlights. The larger chunks of the destroyed wall cast confusing shadows, making him doubt that what he saw was real…

There. A scrap of orange. A piece of brown leather. A bit of tan cloth, the same shade as McGee's trenchcoat. A longer length of dark cloth – Tony's coat.

All jumbled up together. All splattered with blood. And then his mind finally processed what he was seeing around those items…

This time, when Jimmy fainted, he didn't have as far to fall.


	10. Chapter 10

It turns out that the event I was going to be at all weekend is actually _next_ weekend. So, here's another chapter!

* * *

><p>Chapter Ten<p>

_February 5, 2011 – 12:01am_

Jimmy opened his eyes to a darkened room. He felt the pillow under his cheek, the mattress under his body, the comforter wrapped around him, and realized that he was home, in his own bedroom. Slowly, holding his breath, he rolled over.

Next to him, Tony shifted position, mumbling a little in his sleep and automatically pulling more of the covers his way once Jimmy's movement created some slack.

For a moment, Jimmy simply lay there, watching his lover breathe. Then he slipped quietly out of the bed, pulled his clothes on, and made his way into the living room. He turned on the TV, quickly muting the sound, and switched to ZNN, which almost always had the ticker running at the bottom with news updates, sports scores, and most importantly, the date and time.

February 5, 2011. 12:07am.

_What the hell is going on?_

Jimmy stared at the screen for a moment, his mind drawing a blank. He turned toward the couch, then, feeling just a bit silly, went to the kitchen instead. It was but the work of a moment to fill the coffee machine, find Tony's travel mug, and start the coffee brewing. _Then_ he sat down on the couch, pulling up his legs and clutching a pillow to his chest.

Huddled at the end of the couch, Jimmy finally turned his mind to consideration of the events he remembered that apparently hadn't happened – again.

_This is impossible,_ Jimmy thought. _But what other explanation is there?_

According to the TV screen, only a few short hours had passed since he and Tony went to bed. He could have been dreaming, true – a really complex and involved dream – but he remembered too much. No, Jimmy was convinced that he'd actually, somehow, experienced everything that his memory said he did. But how?

_It's like _Groundhog's Day._ Or _12:01._ Hell, it _is_ 12:01 – or was when I woke up – and Groundhog's Day was just a few days ago. I'd wonder if it was a joke, except I don't know how anyone could pull off a joke like this… or why they'd want to._

_But that's not important. What _is_ important is: what do I do now?_

He'd tried warning Tony, but that hadn't worked. Maybe if he had more specific information this time, but – _Dammit, Director Vance never told us who that group was. I could still try telling Tony, but first I'd have to convince him to trust that I'm right, and I can't blame him at all for not believing me. But even if I convince him, he still has to __convince Gibbs and everyone else – and it'll still look like NCIS was hiding information, not that I care if it keeps everyone alive, but… but what if I'm wrong? What if I'm just crazy?_

His thoughts tangled in a hopeless snarl, Jimmy sighed and leaned against the back of the couch, closing his eyes. He didn't know what to do, he didn't know what to think – but he did know what time it was, and what was approaching…

_If he gets that phone call… I'll know I'm not crazy – probably not crazy – if he gets that phone call…_

The minutes ticked away… and then right on time, Tony's phone began to ring. Jimmy unfolded himself and stood up, listening intently.

"DiNozzo… What'd we get, Boss?"

Jimmy nodded to himself.

"Homeland? Seriously?" And a few moments later: "These are the weapons that disappeared from _our_ Marine bases?"

They'd been working on the case all week, but Jimmy truthfully hadn't paid much attention, there being no bodies involved. At least not until tonight… if he couldn't stop it first.

"Tonight?... Right. I'm on my way."

For a split second, Jimmy considered tying Tony down, or knocking him out – anything to keep his lover home safe. But Tony's words of the night before effectively squashed that impulse. _Tony would never forgive himself if Gibbs and the others died. He'd blame himself. And honestly, I couldn't live with it, either. So whatever I do, it's got to save them all. There's no other option._

Mind made up, Jimmy walked toward the bedroom, getting to the door just as Tony opened it.

"Jimmy? What are you doing up?"

Just like before, Jimmy leaned in to kiss his lover, hoping he could pull this off. "Couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd do a little reading," he lied.

The look that Tony gave him seemed somewhat more suspicious than Jimmy remembered. "I thought you were done having nightmares…" he said slowly.

_I wish that's all this was,_ Jimmy couldn't help but think. He regretted it almost immediately as Tony's expression shifted, from suspicion, to worry and suspicion. _Technically, it's true, it's not a nightmare… but I can't tell him that. So…_

He shook his head. "It wasn't a nightmare, it was just – weird." When Tony continued to stare at him, Jimmy became flustered. _Crap, how do I get out of this?_ "I wasn't – I didn't want to wake you up, I just wanted time to think about it." All true, more or less.

Tony nodded his head toward the kitchen. "So you thought coffee was going to help?"

"No, that's for you."

"Really?" Tony raised his eyebrows. "Then why could I smell it when I woke up?"

_Uh oh…_ Jimmy felt his face heat up, and knew he'd given himself away. Or maybe not… if he could make Tony think he was blushing for another reason. "Okay, so I went to make hot chocolate, but I put the coffee in on accident. I wasn't really awake yet, and I just went on autopilot. Okay?" He mock-glared at Tony, hoping the other man would buy his story. It certainly wouldn't be the first time Jimmy made a mistake because he was lost in thought. "At least you're up now, so it's not going to go to waste."

Tony grinned, then laughed at him. _Score one for Palmer._ "Yeah, don't worry, I'll dispose of the evidence for you." Then he raised his hand to stroke the side of Jimmy's face, his expression sobering. "You're sure you're okay, though?"

Jimmy closed his eyes and leaned into Tony's touch. He knew he didn't look okay, so there was no sense in lying. "I'll be okay," he promised instead.

"Tell me about it tonight?"

Jimmy opened his eyes. Tony was looking at him with a small, worried smile on his lips. "Yeah, I will." _Assuming we even get to tonight_, he finished in his head.

Tony didn't seem to want to leave him standing there, so Jimmy made the next move. He took Tony by the shoulders, turned him around, and began pushing him toward the bathroom. "Sounds like you got that break in the case?" he asked as he followed his lover.

"Yeah, it's ours again – for now." Tony pulled back the shower curtain, then turned his head to look back at Jimmy. "Not that I don't want your company, but if you follow me in here, _you_ get to explain to Gibbs why I'm late."

Jimmy buried his hand in Tony's hair and pulled the agent close for a very thorough kiss, the kind of kiss that, twice now, he'd thought could never happen again. Then he let Tony go and stepped back. "I'll stay out here," he promised. "Just keep talking. What do you mean, 'for now?'"

Tony started the water running, then stepped into the shower. "Homeland Security is trying to get their fingers in the pie, too. As if we didn't have enough jurisdictional B.S. to wade through."

"But NCIS has the case now?" Jimmy raised his voice to be heard over the running water.

"Yeah, Girard finally rolled. He and his buddies were moving weapons and explosives off of Marine bases to some whack-job militia group in Michigan."

"Michigan?" Somehow that didn't fit with the mental image Jimmy'd had of the terrorists. _Don't be an ass, Palmer,_ he thought to himself. _Not all terrorists are Middle Eastern. We grow our own here, too._

"Yeah. So ATF has been watching them, we've been trying to track weapons being stolen from Marine bases, and the FBI has intel saying that a lot of weapons are being moved from the Midwest into the D.C. area. Enter Homeland, who says there's been a lot of chatter lately about an attack being planned for sometime this month in D.C." A pause, in which Jimmy could imagine Tony rinsing shampoo out of his hair. "I'm hoping for their sake that they actually know more than that, or Gibbs will probably shoot them for wasting his time." The water shut off.

Jimmy grabbed a towel and handed it past the shower curtain. "So who is this group in Michigan?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

"The Freedom for America Foundation. Their self-proclaimed mission is to save us from the government's evil schemes."

"Which evil schemes are these?"

Tony snorted. "Well, all of them, of course." He stepped out of the shower, still toweling his hair dry. "It's not that I don't agree that we could use an overhaul of at least parts of the system, but killing everyone in government and starting over isn't the way to do it."

"But that's what these guys want to do?"

"Yep, they say it's the only way. And they put it on the internet, so it must be true, right?" Tony rolled his eyes as he hung up the towel.

Jimmy wandered into the kitchen so that Tony could get dressed without distraction – at least, that was what he wanted Tony to believe. He took one of his own mugs, poured some of the coffee into it, then transferred it back to Tony's travel mug so it would look like Jimmy had used his own when he made the coffee. Then he dumped the filter with the used coffee grinds and started heating water. He might as well go ahead and make the hot chocolate now, after all this trouble.

Tony came out of the bedroom, fully dressed, just as the microwave beeped. Jimmy pulled out a re-heated slice of pizza – for the third time – and held it and the coffee while Tony pulled on his coat. "I love you," he told the other man as he handed off the food.

Mug in one hand and pizza in the other, Tony leaned in closer to plant a light kiss on Jimmy's cheek. "Love you, too." He pulled back to look into Jimmy's eyes. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Jimmy reassured him. He pulled open the door. "You be careful out there, okay?"

"Of course." As he started off down the hall, Tony took a bite of the pizza. He turned around and waved with the coffee cup. "Mwauf mwah," he said around the food in his mouth.

Jimmy smiled sadly and shook his head. "I love you, too, but you're still a slob."

* * *

><p>The Jimmy who closed the door on this night was not the same Jimmy who'd collapsed into a heap the night before. He wasn't even the one from the night before that, searching out anything to do to distract himself from his then-baseless anxiety. This Jimmy was filled with the same nervous energy, but he had no intention of wasting it. He had too much to do, and not enough time to do it in.<p>

_Unless the night repeats again and again until I get it right. But that's just in the movies. For all I know, I only get three chances. Better make it count._

Jimmy considered what he knew while he pulled on dark colored jeans and a black long-sleeved t-shirt. It wasn't much. Sometime after the evening shift went home – 10:00, Vance had said – this group had managed to sneak in enough explosives to blow up the highway as well as the building, set those explosives up, and then boobytrap the entrances to the building. They had to be done and completely cleared out – or at least, the building had to _look_ normal – by 4:30 or so, when the task force showed up. The bomb went off at approximately 4:45 – just as the new chairman's vehicle was passing overhead…

_Wait. I didn't hear about him the first night, and I would have – they sent letters to all the news organizations. And the cars I saw on the overpass weren't the same last night as they were the night before. That was what tipped me off that something had changed._

Jimmy paused, one shoe half tied, while he thought it through. "I bet the first night, they set off the boobytrap," he speculated out loud. "Then the second night, they were being more cautious, because I told Tony. I don't really know if he believed me, but it was enough to make him take a little more care, and so they saw the traps. But then something set it off anyway…"

He closed his eyes, trying hard to remember scenes that, frankly, he'd rather forget. The cars on the overpass had been different… but was the overpass itself different as well? Suddenly it all came together…

"The first night, they set off the traps at ground level! Then the second night, they didn't, so nothing happened until the Freedom for America people wanted it to! They had their big bomb set up on the top floor, or maybe the roof – no, too risky, people driving by might see. So their main bomb was up higher, on the top floor, where it would do more damage to the overpass – the building itself wasn't important."

Jimmy stood up and started pacing the room, heedless of his half-tied shoelaces. "But why boobytrap the doors? To destroy evidence in case they were found out early – that has to be it. Or like Ducky said, to take as many law enforcement officers out as they can, so at least they've accomplished something even if they couldn't get their guy."

He stood still for a moment, thinking. Then, mind made up, he finished tying his shoes – this was no time to be careless – and went for his coat. If the problem with stopping Tony and the others from rushing to their deaths was that he didn't have enough information to convince them, then there was only one answer – get more information.

He locked the door behind him and set off down the hall, leaving a mug of hot chocolate behind to slowly cool.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

_February 5, 2011 – 1:14am_

Jimmy's favorite parking lot was just as deserted at 1:14 as it had been – would be – at 5:45, when he and Ducky had arrived last night, or at 6:00, when he'd arrived on his own the night before – though, of course, it was all the same night. He parked at the east end of the lot, farthest away from the office building, then started walking south, toward a residential district.

He didn't have much of a plan, and he knew that should be worrying him; but the events of the last two days – _his_ last two days, anyway – were probably affecting his judgment. He didn't know if he'd get another chance at this if it all went wrong. The one thing Jimmy did know was this – he would do anything, anything at all, if it meant that he wouldn't have to see Tony's dead body tonight. He didn't think of it as courage – far from it, in fact. He was running from his fears, and if the only way out was straight into the inferno, it was still preferable to watching others die because of his failure to act.

After walking three blocks south, Jimmy turned west, back toward the building. He was going to approach by an indirect route, in case they had people watching the area. With any luck, he could find a good spot – he wasn't sure where, maybe behind someone's bushes or something – from which to observe the building.

Hopefully there would actually _be_ something to observe. It was entirely possible that the setup had been accomplished hours before, but Jimmy had to hope that the time loop was set up in such a way that he would actually have a chance to prevent the coming disaster. Otherwise, what was the point?

_Don't ask, Palmer. You might not like the answer…_

Once he'd gone far enough west, Jimmy turned north again. He'd been analyzing the neighborhood as he went, and while normally he wouldn't feel comfortable walking among the run-down houses in the dark of night, tonight it provided an odd sense of security. Lawns that had been overgrown before the winter cold killed the grass, broken toys scattered through various yards, and a definite lack of working street lights gave Jimmy hope that even he, the inept agent wanna-be, could find something to hide behind.

He saw what he was looking for from two blocks away. The house on the left-hand corner directly across from the building's parking lot had a row of unkempt hedges along the sidewalks of both streets. Jimmy slowed his pace as he considered. If he came up along the side of the house, and stayed low, he ought to stay out of sight of anyone across the street. If he could manage to stay out of sight of anyone in the neighboring houses, that would be a bonus.

'NCIS Autopsy Assistant Shot While Trespassing on Private Property.' _Yeah, that would not be a good headline…_

His eyes roamed the area as he approached his target. There were no cars on the street, no lights on in any of the houses facing him. He wasn't going to get a better opportunity. Quickly Jimmy ducked around the end of the hedgerow and, bent double, made his way to the corner where the two rows met. The thicker growth here would hide him from view from the street, and the shadows cast by the parking lot lights would help to hide him from anyone looking out from the house. He settled into a cross-legged position on the ground, then carefully reached out and moved a small branch aside so he could see through the hedges.

The newscast had shown a Google Earth shot of the Art Jones Building as it was before the explosion, so Jimmy had some idea what he'd be looking at. The building – formerly a large, old-fashioned department store before it was converted to separate offices – was seven stories high. The ground floor was a large call center; various accounting businesses and law firms occupied offices on the floors above, with a bank's processing center on the top floor. Not exactly the first place you'd pick for a terrorist attack, but then, Jimmy thought, that was the point.

Occasionally he could hear the sound of large trucks rumbling by on the I-66 overpass. The highway didn't extend directly over the building, but was probably less than twenty yards from it, to Jimmy's left. The overpass itself was nearly a quarter of a mile long, stretching over this run-down residential area and the beginnings of the former downtown district that started just the other side of this street.

_Man, I'd hate to live here,_ Jimmy thought as he listened to the semis passing nearby. _It's not exactly quiet in my neighborhood, but at least the traffic slows down at night. That highway has got to be loud during the day – and this street, too. I wouldn't want to have kids and live here, on such a busy street. No wonder the homes look like they do – anyone with enough money to make repairs has probably moved to a quieter neighborhood by now, and everyone who's left would be foolish to sink money into a house that no one wants to buy._

Looking around, he was surprised that the highway overpass had been built here, rather than the government using its powers of eminent domain to seize the properties around here and tear everything down to make way for a highway at ground level. Giving it some thought, Jimmy could come up with two possibilities. Either there was some topographical feature Jimmy hadn't yet seen – a creek, or ravine, or something – that was more trouble than it was worth to build over; or whoever owned the businesses in this area had enough money and/or political power to sway the highway commission. Perhaps he was being overly cynical, but he strongly suspected it was the second.

He returned his attention to the building. The same lights that cast his hiding spot into shadow also reflected off the windows, making it impossible for Jimmy to tell if there were any lights on inside. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot, both parked on the outskirts, on opposite ends of the lot. It wouldn't surprise Jimmy at all to find that a couple of employees had left their cars behind to go out drinking with their friends – it was Friday night, after all. He'd done the same thing himself. But knowing what he knew, Jimmy couldn't help but be suspicious…

Time passed. Jimmy pulled his hand out of his pocket so he could check his watch. He'd been here for maybe twenty minutes, but it felt like two hours. He was just starting to wonder if his time wouldn't be better spent elsewhere, when the slightest hint of movement from a side entrance near the rear of the building caught his attention.

Wishing he'd brought a pair of binoculars – not that he knew where he'd find one – Jimmy stared at the building across the street. From his vantage point, he could see both the front and the east side of the building, and the entrance he was watching was on the east side, all the way at the rear of the building. It was about the right size for an employee entrance, rather than the grand double doors at the front. There were several ground floor windows on the east side, including one right next to the door – and that was where Jimmy thought he'd seen something.

_I can't see the light reflected there,_ Jimmy noticed. _Is it open?_

His vigilance was rewarded a moment later when he saw a dark-clad figure emerge from the window. It was followed by another, who turned and pulled the window closed behind it. The two stood together for a moment; then the first started walking toward one of the parked cars. He – Jimmy was pretty sure from their sizes that both were men – got into the car closest to Jimmy, pulled out, and drove away, heading east. After a full minute had passed, the other man stepped away from the building. He got into the other car and left, going west.

Jimmy looked at his watch. 1:46am. The smart thing would be to wait – no, the smart thing would be to not be here in the first place, but since he was, he figured he should wait at least five minutes before leaving his hiding place, just in case the men came back.

One minute and thirty-seven seconds later, Jimmy's patience was at an end. Knowing just how foolish his actions were, nevertheless he emerged from the hedges and ran across the street. He didn't stop running until he'd reached the rear of the building and ducked around the corner, out of sight of anyone driving by. Once there, he allowed himself a moment to catch his breath before poking his head around the corner to examine the door.

His earlier guess was correct – the door was clearly marked as an employee entrance. The window next to it had been pulled down most of the way – in fact, a casual glance would likely miss the small gap between the bottom of the window and the window frame. If Jimmy hadn't seen the two men climbing out through it, he wouldn't have looked twice.

_Director Vance said that the entrances were boobytrapped. This is how they were able to get out after they were done setting up, without blowing themselves up. Tony and the others must have figured it out last night and climbed in through the window, avoiding __the trap. But they were still inside when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was passing overhead, and so, when the terrorists detonated their main bomb…_

_Don't think about that. Just do what you have to do._

He closed his eyes, listening intently. A truck was passing by overhead. Once it was gone, he heard nothing – no other cars, no footsteps, no dogs, nothing to indicate that someone might see him. Quickly he stepped around the corner and reached for the bottom of the window. Before his courage could fail him, he grabbed hold and heaved upward, expecting any moment to see a blinding flash –

But the window opened smoothly – almost too smoothly, given its age. Someone had gone to some trouble to make sure that it would open quickly and quietly, and right now, Jimmy was grateful. He climbed awkwardly through the opening, then turned and pulled it down again, careful to leave it an inch or so above the windowsill, as he'd found it.

_So far, so good. Now what?_

The room he found himself in was dimly lit by the exit sign over the door and by emergency lights in the hallway just beyond. Jimmy turned to examine the door, and saw right away that Vance had been correct. Small wires were connected to a tiny metal plate inserted between the door and the strike plate – the metal bracket set into the doorjamb. Opening the door would break the connection between the two pieces of metal. Following the wires in the other direction, Jimmy saw what appeared to be a metal lunchbox sitting on the floor behind the door – only he was sure that what was in there was more sinister than a ham-on-rye.

Glancing around, Jimmy saw that this was basically a locker room for the call center employees. Rows of lockers took up most of the three interior walls; the window, a wall-mounted time clock, and a bulletin board covered in OSHA regulation posters used up the available space of the fourth.

Wishing he'd thought to bring a flashlight, Jimmy crossed the room to the opposite door. The emergency lights provided just enough illumination to keep him from bumping into things, but not enough to really see any detail. Stepping through the door, he found himself at one end of a short hallway. Closed doors were spaced irregularly along both sides and at the closest end. Two were restrooms – men's and women's, next to each other. The door at the end, to Jimmy's right, appeared to open into a stairwell. The others could have been offices or storage rooms – Jimmy couldn't tell.

The other end of the hallway opened out into an enormous room – more than half of the available space, given the size of the building – filled with cubicles. The back wall of one was right in front of Jimmy; he could see posters and what appeared to be sales charts, depicting a downward trend, as far as he could tell. Jimmy had never been in sales, but he'd heard stories; very likely this was supposed to be a motivational tool, situated right where everyone would see it as they came in to work. He was glad that _his_ performance was not judged based on volume… _Now wouldn't that be depressing?_

As dark as the place was, Jimmy was concerned that he might get lost in the cubicle maze. Not that he couldn't find his way out again, but it would be difficult to carry out any sort of systematic search if he couldn't keep his bearings straight. He decided, after a moment's thought, to skip the call center and focus his search higher up.

_I already know the entrances are rigged to explode, and I know a safe way in, so I'll let the agents worry about those bombs. But the second night, it really looked like the main force of the explosion came from the top floor; otherwise, why would it do more damage to the overpass than on the first night?_

Jimmy retreated down the hallway and paused outside the door to the stairwell. Hand hovering over the doorknob, he closed his eyes and wished for luck.

_If I blow myself up tonight, at least Tony and the others will survive, _he thought. _It's true that the overpass would still be damaged, and people could die; but the odds are that there will be fewer cars this time of night. It's a risk, but I have to take it._

Holding his breath, he put his hand on the doorknob, turned it, and pushed the door open…

The door opened onto the bottom landing of the stairwell, sans explosion. Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief, but then saw that the door opposite, which led to the outside, was wired similarly to the door into the locker room. Feeling a little foolish for doing so, Jimmy found himself hugging the nearer wall as he started up the stairs, trying to stay as far away from the deadly lunchbox as possible.

The door onto the second floor was locked, as was the third. Jimmy kept going up, trying doors as he went. After the fourth floor door refused to open for him as well, he started to worry. This stairwell was probably here to allow people to escape in case of fire, but of course no one was going to allow access into their offices – the back of their office, at that – by the other tenants of the building. He hoped that the call center's door hadn't locked behind him; otherwise, it was going to be a very long night – or far too short, depending on his point of view…

He breathed a sigh of relief when the door to the seventh floor opened for him. If his hypothesis was correct and the main bomb was located somewhere on this floor, it made sense for the terrorists to have left the door unlocked to allow them access. With luck, the call center's door would be unlocked as well – after all, they'd had to exit through the window, so they had to be able to get to it. Hopefully, that meant the way out would still be open to Jimmy, as well.

He stepped through the door onto the seventh floor – the sign on the door proclaimed it to be the Item Processing Center for Tri-State Bank and Trust – and paused to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He hadn't realized just how much the lights from the parking lot had been adding to the lights in the call center, but now that he was on a higher floor, he missed the extra illumination. Back pressed against the wall, Jimmy took a moment to consider his position.

_Unless I'm completely turned around, the part of the building closest to the overpass should be… that way._ He looked to his right, along the wall that contained the door he'd just come through. Down that wall to the corner, then along the adjacent wall about a third of the length of the building, should be the best place to put a bomb to ensure the maximum amount of damage to the road as possible. Of course, the exact placement would depend on whatever might be in that part of the room. Knowing there was only one way to find out, Jimmy began to move carefully in that direction, one hand on the wall to guide him, the other held out before him.

He made it five whole feet before running into a table. He threw out his arms to catch himself and knocked what felt like several piles of reports to the floor.

_Fantastic job, Palmer,_ he thought sarcastically. _I really hope the terrorists have managed to disable the alarm here, or this is going to be a bit awkward to explain…_

Truthfully, he hadn't even considered the fact that this was, technically, a _bank_ that he was, technically, breaking into. He found the idea didn't freak him out as much as it once might. Even the thought that he'd forgotten gloves and left his fingerprints all over the place didn't worry him. Avoiding prison was so far down on his list of priorities tonight, it didn't even make the first page.

Kneeling down, Jimmy carefully felt around until he found the toppled reports. Fortunately, he didn't seem to have knocked the papers out of their folders; there were no stray sheets that he could feel. He picked them up and set them back on the table, hoping he'd managed to place them in approximately their original position. It didn't occur to him to _not_ pick up the folders, even though it would either be wasted effort or could be blamed on the terrorists. He'd been bumped into by rude classmates and had textbooks and notepads knocked out of his arms hundreds of times; he refused to be the kind of person who would leave someone else's belongings on the floor.

Moving carefully around the table, Jimmy continued along the wall. There was another table a few feet past the first one, but he had learned to keep his outstretched hand lower and thus managed to avoid another accident. A few feet farther on, and now he was coming closer to the emergency lights mounted at the intersection of the two walls. It still wasn't bright by any means, but now at least he should be able to see the shapes around him.

He looked around, and groaned when he realized that this area of the processing center was covered by yet another cubicle maze. It started about ten feet out from the wall he'd been following, creating a sort of hallway that he'd been moving through. As he approached the corner, he saw that there was about twenty feet between the adjacent wall and the cubicle wall on that side. Once he rounded the corner of the cubical wall, he saw why.

About thirty feet away, some sort of large machine was placed in between the wall and the cubicles. There was a break in the cubicle wall there, allowing for a hallway into the cubicle maze; the machine basically sat at a T intersection. Just past the machine was darkness; the only other set of emergency lights on this wall was all the way at the far corner, too far to aid Jimmy now.

_What _is_ that thing?_ Jimmy asked himself as he moved toward it, now hugging the cubicle wall. The actual wall of the building had windows spaced along it every ten feet or so; Jimmy doubted that anyone would be able to see him from the outside, but he wasn't taking any chances.

Once he reached the intersection, Jimmy spent several moments examining the strange contraption. It was white, approximately ten feet long and three or four feet wide, and was about the same height as his desk at work. The end farthest from the light was, fortunately, the easiest to puzzle out; a chair, a monitor, and a small numeric keypad implied that this was where the operator would sit. The rest of the machine was harder to understand – until an old memory suddenly popped into Jimmy's head.

_I know what this is!_ Back in high school, his economics class had taken a field trip to the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia. Until now, the only parts of that trip that stood out in Jimmy's mind had been the display of shredded dollar bills – what happened when money became too old and mutilated to be used – and the trouble that Brad Potter had caused when he was caught shoplifting in the gift shop. But now he recalled part of the tour where the teacher and the tour guide had actually been trying to teach them something; and he thanked the geek he had been – and still was, he'd admit – that had paid attention.

When a check was written, he remembered, it would be deposited into a bank, which would send it to the Federal Reserve Bank. The Federal Reserve then would send it on to the bank that held the account. To facilitate this process, the check would have its bank's routing number – a unique code – and the account number encoded in magnetic ink along the bottom of the check. The bank where the check was deposited would encode the amount on the check, also in magnetic ink. When the check was sent to the Federal Reserve, large document sorters were used to read the encoded numbers and sort them to be sent on, first to another branch of the Federal Reserve if necessary, and then to the account holder's bank.

Banks received several thousand checks per day, Jimmy had learned, and obviously they could not all be processed by hand. The checks that the bank received from the Federal Reserve were run through a similar document sorter that would read the encoding on the check. What Jimmy was now looking at was a smaller version of the large sorting machines that he'd seen on his field trip – much smaller, but probably capable of processing the volume of checks that a bank the size of the ill-named Tri-State Bank and Trust received each day.

The mystery solved, Jimmy moved past the sorter and continued down the main hallway. He had to slow down as he left the last vestiges of light behind him, and he continued to use the cubicle wall to guide him. He encountered two more breaks in the walls – two more entrances to the maze – before finally reaching the far wall; but other than that, he saw nothing.

Part of him wondered idly why the cubicles were designed so that no one got to look out the windows. But this was just a distraction from the bigger question that was worrying him – how was he going to find a bomb, something that he had no idea what it would look like, in the dark?

_I'm never going to be able to see anything inside the cubicles… but then, they couldn't, either. Unless they risked turning on the lights – but I can't imagine they wanted to do that any more than I do. Of course, they were probably smart enough to bring flashlights with them, so that gives them a definite advantage over me._

Frustrated and no little bit disheartened, Jimmy turned around and started back. His original estimate for the optimal placement of the bomb, if it wasn't along the wall itself, would then indicate the rows of cubicles between the first and second cubicle hallways. He was really wishing for a flashlight now; he didn't relish the idea of searching the cubicles by feel and possibly triggering an explosion by accident.

He had just reached the sorter again when he heard a most unwelcome sound – that of the doorway to the stairwell banging open. And then –

"Jesus, Carl! Can't you be careful?"

"What? The alarm's off and there's no one here. Unless you didn't disarm it –"

"I told you, I know what I'm doing! Besides, if I hadn't, there woulda been cops here a long damn time ago, wouldn't there?"

Frozen to the spot, Jimmy broke out into a cold sweat. He could see the beams of their flashlights bouncing off the walls; he could hear the sounds of their footsteps – not to mention the loud arguing. At least they hadn't snuck up on him… but what was he going to do now?


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

_February 5, 2011 – 2:33am_

At the last moment, Jimmy regained sense enough to dash down the cubicle hallway and duck into the first cube. Feeling as helpless as a kid hiding under the bed, he climbed underneath the desk and huddled, knees drawn to his chest. With any luck, their bickering would cover the sounds of his panicked breathing until he could get himself under control.

_Relax, Palmer. They have no reason to suspect that you're here. You're safe._

_Probably safe._

From the other side of the cubicle wall behind him, Jimmy heard two thumps, as if the men had dropped something on the floor.

"Okay, can we get it right this time?" the first voice said.

The second person – Carl – sighed dramatically. "Hey, it's not my fault if Hayes can't pack the right equipment," he defended himself.

"Whatever," the first man said. "Just finish the job already."

"Fine," Carl snapped. "Hold the damn light steady, then."

The sound of something opening on squeaky hinges preceded several moments of thumps, creaks, and irritated swearing on the other side of the wall. From his hiding place under the desk, Jimmy had a sudden realization.

_The document sorter! That's where they've hidden the bomb!_ It made perfect sense – hide it in the insides of the machine, and no one, not even the bank employees, would notice unless they tried to turn the sorter on. Even if law enforcement managed to get into the building without blowing it up, they wouldn't see it right away.

_And they wouldn't know where exactly to look, either,_ Jimmy thought. _I only knew because I saw the damage it did – is going to do. They'd have to go through the whole building, and by that time, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs would be driving overhead… just like last night. They wouldn't – didn't – have a chance._

And they wouldn't tonight, either – unless Jimmy could survive without being found long enough to get word to them.

The minutes ticked by. Carl worked on the machine, while the unnamed man appeared to do nothing but harangue his partner. It reminded Jimmy of some of the 'team' projects he'd done in school – with Jimmy doing all the work, while his partners gossiped about other classmates behind their backs. That lasted right up until the last project of his senior year, when – knowing that his final grade wouldn't be worse than a B – Jimmy deliberately tanked the project. It earned him a punch in the stomach from the football player who'd been in his group, but overall, Jimmy thought it had been worth it.

Finally, it sounded like they were ready to leave. Jimmy suppressed a sigh of relief and waited impatiently while they packed up their gear.

"So the remote will work?" the first man nagged his partner.

"As long as Garrett planted the transmitter somewhere in the car, it should work," Carl confirmed.

"Nice to see Garrett actually being useful for once."

"No kidding. All I've ever heard from him is 'Oh, I can't do that, I can't compromise my position.'" Carl said this last in a whining falsetto. "Mr. High-and-Mighty, 'I'm so important because I work at the Pentagon.' I wonder why he finally decided to go all in?"

"Oh, didn't you hear?"

"No, what?"

"Budget cuts. Mr. I'm So Important wasn't important enough to save his job. They told him this morning, but they were gonna let him work through next week." Carl's partner snorted in derision. "Coward can't tell his boss what he thinks to his face, but sure can stab him in the back on the way out the door."

"Still, good thing for us, right?"

"Sure." Jimmy heard the hinges of the machine creak again, then a muffled click as the door to the inner workings of the sorter was closed again. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Jimmy held his breath as he listened to the sound of their footsteps walking away. He waited until he heard the stairwell door close behind them before dropping his head to his knees with a relieved sigh.

"God, that was too close," he whispered.

This time, he made himself wait the full five minutes before crawling out from his hiding space. He stood up and stretched, arms over his head, glancing around the cubicle as he did so. _I'm so glad I don't have an office job,_ he thought as he brought his arms down. One hand brushed against something cool and metallic.

A sudden flare of light startled him; he was later ashamed of the undignified squeak that burst from his lips as he ducked, arms coming up to protect his head. But when nothing happened, he lowered his arms, then had to slap both hands over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud at himself. The light was coming from nothing so sinister as a touch-sensitive lamp sitting on the desk; Jimmy had accidentally bumped it with his hand. It wasn't very bright, but after the darkness of his hiding place, it seemed to shine like the sun.

_A little jumpy there, aren't you, Palmer?_

He reached out a hand to turn the lamp off, but as he did so, an idea occurred to him.

"That's perfect!" he whispered. A plan quickly presented itself in his head for consideration: he would take pictures of the bomb with his phone, using the lamp for illumination, then send them to Tony and explain what he knew. He still didn't know what to say when they asked him how he knew what was going to happen, but at least he'd have proof that was he was saying was true – and as long as they all lived through it, he'd deal with the consequences later. Right now, saving lives was more important.

Jimmy picked up the lamp to move it, and it brightened again at his touch. A three-way bulb – even better. He pulled it out into the hallway as far as the cord would go, then set it on the floor. One more tap, and the lamp was at its brightest setting. With any luck, enough light would shine on the machine that the phone could pick up details, and McGee or Abby could enhance the picture even further if necessary.

He reached into an inside coat pocket and pulled out his phone. He'd been too panicked that first night to remember that he'd left his phone in his coat, instead of putting it on his desk as he usually did when he came home. He positioned himself so that he wasn't blocking the light, then flipped open the phone –

The screen was dark.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Jimmy moaned. He pressed the power button, but nothing happened. How could he have let his battery run down? Disgusted with himself, he raised his hand and slapped the back of his own head, as he'd often seen Tony do when his lover knew he'd messed up. Now what was he going to do?

_Think, Jimmy. You can't take pictures, but you can still give them the details they'll need to at least find the thing. Plus, now you know that they've got some kind of transmitter in the chairman's car that will set the bomb off. That's more than you had before._

_I just hope it's enough._


	13. Chapter 13

Last chapter was pretty short, so here's some more...

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><p>Chapter Thirteen<p>

_February 5, 2011 – 3:07am_

Jimmy carefully opened the window and looked out at the parking lot. Empty. He scrambled over the windowsill and pulled the window almost shut again, then took off running. No subterfuge this time – he went straight for the lot where his car was parked, seven blocks away. He was winded by the time he got there, but he only allowed himself a moment to catch his breath before he put the car into gear and pulled out into the street.

He spent the entire drive to the Navy Yard reviewing what he needed to tell them. _Seventh floor, Tri-State Bank and Trust. The machine is a Unisys DP500. The guy who put the bomb together was Carl; didn't hear the other guy's name. The guy who planted the transmitter was Garrett. No, I don't know if that's a first or last name. Hayes was the guy who couldn't pack the equipment right, so they had to make a second trip. How do I know all this? You wouldn't believe me if I told you…_

When he tried to check in at Security, the guard took his ID and asked him to wait while he made a phone call. Jimmy nodded and smiled, trying to contain his impatience. Of course, Tony could come and go at all hours, but what possible reason could the autopsy assistant have for showing up at – Jimmy checked his watch – 3:30 in the morning? Especially when the medical examiner hadn't called him in…

A minute later, the guard was back. "Someone will be down to escort you up," he told Jimmy, handing his ID back.

Jimmy thanked him politely. Inside, his stomach was churning. _Great, I'm bound to have already pissed off Gibbs, and I haven't even seen him yet. _He hadn't considered that Security wouldn't want to have him wandering around by himself after hours when he didn't have authorization to be there. Now one of Gibbs' agents was going to have to stop working and escort Jimmy up, like a little kid who couldn't be trusted to walk home from school alone.

"Palmer? What are you doing here?" Ziva walked up to him, looking puzzled. Her hair had been pulled back into a no-nonsense pony tail, and she wore a deep blue sweater, faded jeans – and her hand-made brown leather boots that she'd brought with her from Israel.

_I'd know those boots anywhere…_

Ziva stepped closer and touched his arm with her hand. "Jimmy, are you alright?" she asked in her accented English. "You look like a ghost."

Jimmy didn't correct her phrasing, because then he'd have to admit that she was more correct than she could know. _I feel like I _have_ seen a ghost._ Instead, he took a deep breath, steeling himself for the task ahead of him. "I need to talk to Gibbs," he told her, proud that his voice only shook a little bit.

"It could not wait until Monday? We are working on a case –"

"I know," he interrupted her. "I've got information that you'll need."

A frown drew her brows together. "What information?" she asked, clearly doubting that Jimmy could possibly know anything more about the case than they did already. Jimmy didn't blame her, but he hoped he'd be able to convince them.

He gestured toward the elevator. "I think it'd probably be better to tell everyone at once," he said, although truthfully he thought no such thing. It might be better for them to hear it together; but for him, facing them all at once as he related his crazy tale would be a thousand times harder.

"All right, then." Ziva nodded at the security guard, then led Jimmy down the hall and into the elevator. The ride up was too quick; before he knew it, the elevator doors were opening in front of them. He walked ahead of Ziva as she herded him into the bullpen.

The room seemed more crowded than normal; after a moment, he realized why. In addition to the MCRT, Agents Fornell and Sacks from the FBI were there, standing next to McGee at the plasma screen. The younger agent was utilizing the large screen to display what looked to Jimmy like someone's phone bill; rows and rows of phone numbers filled the screen.

Tony was sitting at his desk, working on his computer. Gibbs had been leaning on Tony's desk, looking over his senior field agent's shoulder; now, the silver-haired man straightened up and glared at Jimmy.

"Care to explain yourself, Palmer?"

That got everyone's attention, especially Tony's; Jimmy saw his lover's head whip around to stare at him. Jimmy froze like a deer caught in the headlights, unable to look away from Gibbs' blue eyes. Now that he was here, he found he was just as terrified of the former Marine's wrath as he had been of being caught by the terrorists in the bank.

Ziva stepped in. "Palmer says he has information about our case," she announced.

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. "Well?"

Jimmy licked his lips nervously. "I – I –" he stuttered. Gibbs took a step forward, and Jimmy immediately took a step back, trying to keep a safe distance. _Don't forget, Palmer, he's a sniper – he's just as dangerous far away as he is at close range. _The thought was not comforting.

He took another step back, and bumped into Ziva. The former Mossad officer grabbed his shoulders firmly – not painfully so, but enough to remind him that pain was always an option. Now he was trapped between the sniper and the assassin, which did nothing for his confidence.

Gibbs lost his patience. "We don't have all night, Palmer!" he snapped. "Either give us something useful or get out of the way!"

_We don't have all night…_ Instinctively, Jimmy's eyes flicked to the clocks on the wall. It was already 3:38; they were running out of time. He looked back and saw –

An orange watchband, on Gibbs' arm. A tan trenchcoat, thrown across the back of McGee's chair. A black wool coat, likewise on the back of Tony's chair. His eyes flashed to Fornell – he couldn't remember what the older man had been wearing, but he did remember the blood, the bruises, and the white of the bone poking out of his arm. Sacks he didn't remember seeing at all. Either he hadn't been there, or he hadn't been found before sunrise.

He looked again at the people around him, still alive, still whole, and from somewhere, he found his courage again.

"I know where the Freedom for America people have set up their bomb." And with that, the dam broke.

Gibbs, Fornell, and Tony all started speaking at once, but Jimmy ran right over them. He gave them names and locations. He described what he'd seen while hiding across the street; he told them about the boobytraps, and the safe access into the building. He even had McGee pull up the Google Earth street view of the building so he could point out the correct window. He sketched what he could of the bank processing center's floor plan and marked the location of the sorting machine.

He was acutely aware of the disbelieving looks he was getting from everyone, especially Tony, but he resolutely ignored them. If he stopped for even a moment, he was going to lose momentum, and this time he knew he wouldn't get it back.

But it couldn't go on forever; finally, Jimmy ran out of things to say. He stood next to the plasma screen with its view of the building, nervously twisting his fingers together, and waited for the first blow to fall.

It didn't take long. "Palmer, how the hell do you know all this?" Gibbs stormed, eyes blazing.

This was the part he'd really been dreading. "I… I can't tell you," Jimmy mumbled, looking down at the floor.

"The hell you can't," Sacks argued, stepping closer and looming over Jimmy. They were close to the same height, but he managed to loom all the same.

"Watch it, Slacks." Tony's voice held a threatening tone.

"Boss, I can verify at least some of Palmer's story," McGee called out from his desk. Everyone looked at him. "There's a Ronald Garrett on the Chief of Staff's… uh, staff… and his file shows that he's due to be terminated at the end of next week."

"And there's a Carl Howard on the suspect list that the ATF provided," Ziva added.

"There's a Carl Richards in Girard's unit," Tony commented, holding up a file folder. "Could be either one."

"Or neither," Sacks pointed out. "Are you seriously telling me you're just going to take his word for it? How the hell can he know that much without being a part of it?"

"Whoa!" "Hold on, there!" "Hey!" The shouts came from three different directions.

Gibbs didn't yell. He just calmly stepped up and stared at Sacks until the FBI agent looked away. Then he turned to Jimmy, silently demanding an explanation.

An explanation that Jimmy couldn't give. Even with the team's confirmation of some of the details from Jimmy's account, they still didn't quite believe him. If he told them that this was his third Saturday morning in three days, he'd lose all the precious ground he'd managed to gain.

Gibbs watched him a moment longer, then shook his head. "Go sit down, Palmer," he ordered, turning away. "McGee, I want –"

"– Background check on Garrett including phone records, got it."

"Ziva –"

"– Background on Carl Howard, and cross-reference phone records with McGee."

"Tony –"

"– Likewise with Carl Richards. On it, Boss."

"Right. Fornell, my office." Gibbs jerked his head toward the elevator.

Jimmy watched the two lead agents walk away. He was just realizing whom Gibbs _hadn't_ given an order to when he suddenly became aware of Agent Sacks standing too close behind him. He tried to turn around, but the other man grabbed Jimmy's arm and twisted it up behind his back, effectively immobilizing him.

"So what else are you hiding, Palmer?" Sacks snarled as he pushed the younger man toward Gibbs' desk.

"Let him go, Slacks!" Tony ordered as he, Ziva, and McGee all shot out of their chairs to converge on the lone FBI agent.

Sacks shoved his captive so that Jimmy ended up half-sprawled across Gibbs' desk, knocking his keyboard to the floor. Holding him in place with a hand pressed between his shoulder blades, Sacks kicked Jimmy's feet apart. "Not til I know he's not carrying a weapon," he countered, using his free hand to pat Jimmy down.

Jimmy closed his eyes and bit his lower lip, trying to focus on anything other than Sacks' humiliating treatment of him. He knew better than to struggle; the other man would probably use it as an excuse to further restrain him. Instead he offered no resistance as the agent searched his pockets and felt for any hidden weapons Jimmy might be carrying.

Finally satisfied that Jimmy was no threat, Sacks pulled him up roughly by the back of his shirt and shoved him toward Tony, who caught Jimmy as his lover stumbled. McGee and Ziva took another step closer to Sacks, who had Gibbs' desk behind him and couldn't back away.

"Was that entirely necessary?" Ziva's voice was low and dangerous; her brown eyes smoldered as she glared at Sacks.

Sacks returned the look. "Tell me you wouldn't do the same, if he were one of ours."

"But he's not, Slacks," Tony growled. "He's one of _ours._" The unspoken implication there was: _and you're not._

McGee smiled grimly at Sacks. "Why don't you take a walk, Agent Sacks?" he suggested in a deceptively mild tone. Jimmy had heard about the time McGee got to interrogate a bully; he imagined this was very much what it had looked like.

Sacks knew he was outnumbered, and his position was deteriorating. "Just make sure he's still here when I get back," he warned them as he made his exit, heading for the stairs since Gibbs' office was still in use.

As soon as he was gone, Jimmy staggered to Gibbs' desk and leaned against it, his legs none too steady after the unexpected encounter. He didn't dare lean on Tony in front of the others; they couldn't afford to risk giving anything away in front of Tony's teammates. Drawing a shaky breath, he looked at the three agents gathered around him. "Thanks, guys."

Tony continued to glare in the direction Sacks had gone. "Bastard," he muttered under his breath. Then he shook his head and turned to the others. "Probie, Ziva, you two get back to work," he suggested. He looked at Jimmy and nodded his head toward the stairs leading up to the mezzanine. "Palmer, campfire."

Jimmy followed as Tony led him, not up the stairs, but behind them. From here, they couldn't be seen from the bullpen. He was mentally congratulating Tony for finding a way for them to talk privately that wouldn't arouse suspicion when the other man grabbed him by his shirt with both hands and pushed him up against the wall. "Jimmy, what the hell is going on?" he demanded, his voice a mixture of concern and anger.

Coming on top of Sacks' assault, it was too much. Jimmy grabbed onto Tony's forearms in an attempt to stay upright even as his knees buckled and he began sliding down the wall.

"Jesus, Jimmy –" Tony eased his lover to the floor and went down on one knee beside him, his arm automatically circling Jimmy's shoulders. Given the circumstances, he could still pass that off as a gesture between friends, should anyone see. "Jimmy, it's okay. Just tell me what's going on."

"I can't." Jimmy stared straight ahead, unable to look Tony in the eyes.

"Why not?" When Jimmy didn't answer, Tony put his hand on Jimmy's cheek and turned the younger man's face to his. "Jimmy, I can't protect you from Fornell and Sacks if I don't know what's going on. How do you know what the FFAF is planning? You didn't even know who they were until tonight – did you?"

"No." Jimmy could at least answer that honestly.

"Then how –"

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs' voice startled them both, but fortunately, it was coming from the bullpen, out of sight. "Grab your gear!"

Tony hesitated. "Jimmy," he whispered, as if afraid that Gibbs could hear them even from so far away.

Jimmy's hand came up to pull Tony's hand away from his face, but he held onto it for a moment. "Tony, do you trust me?"

"Of course."

"Then trust me now." Jimmy squeezed Tony's hand tight. "I can't tell you how I know, but I swear that everything I said is true. You have to believe me."

"But why? Why are you doing this? If Sacks has his way, you'll be arrested as a co-conspirator!"

_And my only defense will be an insanity plea._

"DiNozzo!"

Tony looked desperately at his lover, but Jimmy merely shook his head, lips pressed tightly together.

"Jimmy –"

"You have to go, Tony." Jimmy hated saying it, but it was true. "Just please come back to me." The words slipped out before he could stop them.

Tony stood up and pulled Jimmy to his feet. "Always." He wrapped his arms around the younger man. "Listen, don't say anything else. When I get back, we'll figure something out. I know a couple of good lawyers. We'll get you out of this."

Jimmy nodded mutely and let Tony guide him back to the bullpen. Gibbs and Fornell had returned, as had Sacks. Everyone had their coats on and gear ready, but to Jimmy's surprise, Gibbs didn't seem angry at the delay.

"Tony, grab your gear," he said quietly. "Palmer, you stay here til we get back."

Jimmy nodded; he hadn't expected them to take him along, so he'd planned on waiting until they left, then following in his car. To disguise his intentions, however, he played along with Gibbs' request, grabbing his coat from where he'd tossed it on the floor and laying it across the back of Tony's chair before sitting down behind the desk. His choice of seats shouldn't give their secret away – no one would expect him to dare to take Gibbs' or Ziva's chairs, after all, so that just left Tony's and McGee's, and Tony's was closer. He shared a brief look with Tony as the agent retrieved his backpack from behind his desk, but now that they were back into 'public' mode, the intensity was carefully throttled back.

Finally everyone was ready – except Sacks. The younger of the two FBI agents stood next to Tony's desk, playing with the stapler. "Hey, DiNozzo," the man said casually. "You lock the drawers on this thing?"

"Uh, yeah," Tony said slowly, eying the agent whom Jimmy suspected was his least favorite person in all of law enforcement. "Why?"

In one quick move, Sacks pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt, behind his back. Before Jimmy could react, Sacks slapped one cuff closed on his right wrist. The other cuff went through the handle of Tony's top desk drawer and snapped closed, trapping Jimmy behind the desk.

"Hey!"

McGee and Ziva both grabbed onto Tony's shoulders before their senior field agent could commit homicide and career suicide together in the same move. Gibbs, on the other hand, calmly folded his arms across his chest and turned to Fornell.

"Can't you control your sidekick, Tobias?"

To his credit, Fornell matched Gibbs, look for look. "He's got a point, Jethro," Fornell pointed out. "Until Palmer comes clean and tells us how he got his information, he's still a suspect. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and wait until we're back before formally arresting him – unless, of course, he's ready to talk by then." He looked straight at Jimmy as he spoke those last words.

Jimmy swallowed and looked away. An arrest – even if he was never convicted of a crime – would still taint his record and ruin his career prospects for the rest of his life. He likely would never be able to work as a medical examiner – and that was assuming that he wouldn't be kicked out of medical school before obtaining his M.D. _It doesn't matter, _he told himself resolutely, ignoring the sting of tears in his eyes. _If I tell them the whole story, it'll cast doubt on everything else I've told them. At least this way, they have a chance of surviving. That's all that matters._

As Jimmy suspected, Gibbs really couldn't argue with Fornell when the man was actually being quite reasonable, given the circumstances. "Fine," he conceded. He gathered his team to him with a look. "Let's go."

They headed toward the elevators, casting sympathetic glances back at Jimmy. Tony contrived to be the last one out. _Sorry,_ he mouthed silently, before using the small amount of sign language Abby had taught him to tell Jimmy, _I love you._

With one hand trapped at desk level, Jimmy couldn't answer the same way, even if Tony could understand everything he meant to say. "I love you, too," he whispered, knowing that no one was in range to hear him. Once they started to board the elevator, he didn't dare say anything else, not knowing if Gibbs could read lips as well as Abby could. When the doors finally closed, he finished the thought, even though it was too late for Tony to hear or see. "Come back to me."


	14. Chapter 14

Got a couple of short chapters for you tonight. :)

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><p>Chapter Fourteen<p>

_February 5, 2011 – 3:58am_

NCIS Computer Security would have been appalled at the ease with which Jimmy Palmer, the Autopsy Gremlin, was able to log into Tony's computer. Of course, Security didn't know about Jimmy's alter ego, Black Lung. They also didn't realize that their stringent password criteria were actually counter-productive. Passwords had to be between eight and twenty characters long, contain at least one uppercase and one lowercase letter, one number, and one symbol. They had to be changed once a month, passwords could not be reused within a 24-month period, and passwords that were too similar to a previous password were not acceptable. Sure, maybe McGee and the Cybercrimes agents could keep all that straight, but most people had trouble coming up with more than a handful of unique passwords that fit all of those requirements. Hence the need to write them down and keep them handy – completely counter to security rules, but sometimes one had to break the rules in order to get anything accomplished.

Jimmy found Tony's password on a sticky note attached to a page inside his page-a-day Classic Horror Films Trivia calendar. He had to smile just a little when he realized that Tony had chosen Jimmy's birthday to stick it to. The film in question for that day was _The Birds_, which Jimmy had never seen. He would have to remember to request a viewing for his birthday; he was sure it would make Tony smile.

He typed the password in with his left hand, grateful that at least Sacks had left him with that much mobility. He was certainly glad that his activities on this night had kept him too busy to get anything to eat or drink, because the arrogant FBI agent hadn't even asked if he needed to use the restroom before they left him. Then again, Sacks hated Tony as much as Tony despised him; he probably _hoped_ that Jimmy would lose control of his bladder while cuffed to Tony's desk.

_That's enough. Let it go. Focus on the task at hand._

The first thing that Jimmy did was pull up the ZNN website. If anything went wrong, he'd find out here first. He wished he could access the plasma as a second monitor, but he had no idea how the agents did that. As far as he knew, it was technomagic.

Next, he pulled up another browser window and used it to Google the Freedom for America Foundation. Tony had said that they put their claims up on the internet, which meant that even Jimmy ought to be able to find out something about their objectives.

For the next half hour, Jimmy read through the FFAF's poorly designed and even more poorly written website. He found articles mentioning the group in local Michigan newspapers. He Googled the names he could remember as well – Carl Richards, Carl Howard, and Ronald Garrett. He wasn't sure how much use any of this would be, but it gave him something to focus on other than the clocks on the wall.

He read that the FFAF wanted to basically shut down the federal government, by any means necessary, because the government collected taxes from its citizens and taxes were, of course, an infringement of its citizens' rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, guaranteed in the Constitution. _It was the Declaration of Independence, you idiots._ _And if there's no government, who enforces the Constitution, anyway?_

The FFAF also thought that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were badly handled by both the Bush and Obama administrations. The U.S. shouldn't be looking to pull out; it should jump in with both feet and show those Arab terrorists who's boss. Jimmy wondered just how the FFAF thought the U.S. should pay for those wars, since not only were they against taxes, they were against any federal debt, too.

He read on, about the FFAF's view of immigration – _'America should be preserved for Americans, not just anyone who wants to come here and take our jobs and our land,'_ as if most Americans _weren't_ descended from immigrants who came to North America from elsewhere. Regarding the war on drugs, the FFAF thought that the government ought to do more to keep drug dealers – who were all illegal immigrants, of course – in prison and off the streets, as if both drug enforcement and prisons didn't cost money that would have to be obtained by taxing its citizens or increasing the federal debt.

The site's 'Current Events' page contained an article on the appointment of the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Apparently, the FFAF thought that the new guy was going to hand America over to al Qaeda on a silver platter, and were advocating for someone with _'the balls to show those Arabs we mean business.'_

Jimmy rolled his eyes. _It's like these guys are three years old,_ he thought. _They want what they want, and if you tell them that it's impossible to get everything they want, they throw a tantrum._

Every few minutes, Jimmy switched to the ZNN window and refreshed the page. _So far, so good…_

But in the end, it wasn't the ZNN website after all that gave him his first hint of trouble. He'd been searching a Detroit news site for articles concerning any other Midwestern militia groups – he supposed it was possible that such groups might band together for a common purpose, although it was more likely that their leaders were too egotistical to share their power with another. After finishing yet another marginally useful article, Jimmy clicked the link back to the site's home page –

_Breaking News: Explosion in D.C. Suburb Damages Interstate Highway Overpass._ The headline was in bold red letters at the top of the page, catching Jimmy's attention instantly, just as it was designed to do.

_What? _Jimmy's head whipped around to check the clock. _But they should have at least another half hour!_

He attempted to click on the headline, but it was text only, not a link. At this point, they probably didn't have any more to report than exactly what the headline said. Jimmy flipped back to the ZNN site and refreshed the page, but it didn't even have a news alert posted yet.

_Maybe they weren't there yet… no, that's ridiculous, it doesn't take that long to get from here to there. Maybe they had to go get the ATF team first. Maybe Gibbs had to stop for coffee. Maybe…_

Jimmy shook his head. Speculation was useless at this point. Until the news sites updated, he wouldn't know anything.

_Concentrate on the facts. Up until I got here, both the terrorists and the team were on their original timelines. Then I told them where to go, probably – almost definitely – earlier than they would have found out themselves. So they got there early – _

"But they _knew_ about the doors!" Jimmy exclaimed out loud, slamming his free hand down on the desk. "And it was too early for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to be driving by. So what the hell happened? What set it off?"

_You never heard them call the ATF. You never heard them call for a bomb disposal squad._ Jimmy froze as the implications hit him. _Tony still gives Ziva grief about that bomb that she disarmed herself instead of trying to escape. She really scared the crap out of him. And then there's Gibbs. His approach to technology he doesn't understand – and that's pretty much all of it – is to bang on it until it starts working or shoot it until it stops. What if…?_

No. He wasn't going to go there. He was going to wait for the facts. Or…

Jimmy reached for Tony's phone. Cradling the receiver between his shoulder and his ear, he dialed Tony's cell number from memory. Of the entire MCRT, Tony's was the only number he knew by heart. That was why he was calling Tony, Jimmy told himself. It wasn't just because he needed, really needed, to hear his lover's voice…

The call went straight to voicemail.

"_Hi, you've reached Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. Leave a message at the beep."_

"Tony –" Jimmy's voice broke, and he had to swallow and start again. "Tony, it's Jimmy. Please call me as soon as you can. I'm" – he gave a strangled laugh – "I'm still here. Just call your desk." He hesitated for a moment, fingers gripping the phone tight, and then decided that if Tony was dead, he didn't care who else might hear this message. "I love you," he choked out, and then he hung up the phone.

The time crawled for Jimmy. He hit the refresh button on the browser windows more than a dozen times before any of the news sites managed to post an update that had anything more than 'there was an explosion, we'll tell you more soon.' But finally, ZNN had an actual update. Jimmy held his breath as he clicked the link and began to read.

"_An explosion at the Art Jones Building in Rothstown, Virginia has damaged part of the I-66 overpass… possible terrorist attack… number of casualties unknown… agents from the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) believed to be in the building at the time of the explosion…"_

"Oh, God," Jimmy whispered, tears blurring his vision. "Please, not again…"

He buried his face in the crook of his left arm, struggling to control his emotions. If this was really it, if this was his last chance to avert disaster, then he had failed miserably; but if he could just have another chance…

_Please… I don't know why this is happening, but please… please let me try again. I would give anything, I will do whatever it takes, just please… please don't let them die. Please…_

Jimmy lifted his head, swallowing past the lump in his throat, and wiped the tears away with a shaking hand. If this was really happening, if this was the reality he was stuck with, then he no longer cared about the consequences of his actions tonight. But if he somehow managed to get another chance to save Tony and the team – his friends – then he needed to be prepared.

_Tonight didn't work. For whatever reason, telling them about the bombs still didn't keep them from setting them off. So tomorrow – if there is a tomorrow where this hasn't happened yet – I need to do something different. I just need to figure out what._

Jimmy started to reach for a pen, but was brought up short by the handcuffs. He growled in frustration. _I can't write worth a damn left-handed, but I can't keep all this straight in my head, either. What can I use…?_

A moment later, he had it. He pulled up a spreadsheet program on Tony's computer, and spent a moment looking at its orderly rows and columns, waiting for data.

_I can put the times down the left-hand column, and then create a column for each of the three nights, and plot out what happened when…_

Jimmy started with 12:00 and went down the column, filling in the time in 15-minute increments until…

_I haven't seen the sun rise since Friday… I mean Friday three days ago. It was getting lighter, but both nights I passed out sometime before the actual sunrise. So hypothetically speaking, if I can make it til sunrise with everyone still alive…_

He didn't know, of course, that preventing the team's deaths was the reason for the time loop. For all he knew, the loop would continue until he chose the right slice of pizza to give to Tony when he left for the night. That said, he was going to do whatever it took to keep Tony and the others safe… and to be on the safe side, he was going to stick with the same slice of pizza, just in case.

He switched back to the browser window to Google "time of dawn February 5, 2011," thinking he'd get an easy answer. But it wasn't so simple. He chose an official-looking site out of the search results and found himself looking at a chart with _three_ different times for dawn, and a fourth time for when the sun actually rose.

Switching to Wikipedia, he searched for the definitions of the different 'dawns' listed on the chart.

_Astronomical Dawn – _the moment after which the sky is no longer completely dark; formally defined as the time at which the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon in the morning.

_Nautical Dawn – _the time at which there is enough sunlight for the horizon and some objects to be distinguishable; formally, when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon in the morning.

_Civil Dawn – _that time at which there is enough light for objects to be distinguishable, so that outdoor activities can commence; formally, when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon in the morning.

Jimmy sighed. Well, who could tell the difference just by looking?

_Gibbs, probably. We lowly mortals, not so much._

At least he had a definite ending time for his timeline – as far as he knew, sunrise never happened in the time loop. And even if it did… _ If I don't get this right, what happens at sunrise won't matter anyway, because they'll already be dead._

Once he had the timeline finished, he leaned back in Tony's chair as far as the handcuffs would allow, biting the knuckles of his left hand as he considered what he knew.

_Let's see… the first night, it hit the news around five o'clock. They must have taken a few minutes to verify what was going on before they went live, but not too long, since they didn't have cameras on-scene yet, just that traffic helicopter. So… best guess is that the explosion must have occurred around 4:45-ish, give or take…_

Typing slowly with just one hand, Jimmy filled in the events of the last three nights in their appropriate time slots. When he finally had everything filled in, he created a fourth column so he could plan for tomorrow – or tonight again, rather –

_God, I hope so. If tomorrow really is tomorrow…_ He pushed that thought aside and kept working.

* * *

><p>Some time later, Jimmy pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. He was starting to get one hell of a headache. Eye strain, probably. He sighed and sat back, leaving his glasses on the desk. He'd done as much as he could manage from his rather inconvenient position. He'd plotted, planned, and now all he could do was wait to see if the sun would rise…<p>

Jimmy closed his eyes and hoped for darkness.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

_February 5, 2011 – 12:01am_

Jimmy opened his eyes to a darkened room. He felt the pillow under his cheek, the mattress under his body, the comforter wrapped around him, and realized that he was home, in his own bedroom. Slowly, holding his breath, he rolled over.

Next to him, Tony shifted position, mumbling a little in his sleep and automatically pulling more of the covers his way once Jimmy's movement created some slack.

Jimmy propped himself up on one elbow and sat quietly for a while, just watching his lover breathe. Then he slipped out of the bed, pulled his clothes on, and made his way into the living room. He turned on the TV, quickly muting the sound, and switched to ZNN…

February 5, 2011. 12:08am

_Oh, thank God…_

Jimmy moved toward the couch, then shook his head and turned to the kitchen instead. He readied the coffee machine, but remembering the previous night, did _not_ start it yet. He went back into the living room to sit down – then, remembering something else, he went to pull his phone out of his coat pocket and plug it into its charger. _Then _he sat down on the couch, pulled up his legs, and clutched a pillow to his chest.

Huddled at the end of the couch, Jimmy stared into space, replaying the events of the last few nights in his head.

_I warned them about the explosives, and they still set them off anyway. I'm not sure how, but it happened. So this time… the explosives have to be disarmed before any of the agents show up. And the only way to do that…_

Jimmy snorted – quietly, so as not to wake Tony. _I can't believe I'm actually considering doing this. But what else can I do?_

He closed his eyes and leaned against the back of the couch, trying to slow his breathing and calm his mind. He couldn't do anything until Tony left, and until then, he had to keep his lover from noticing anything out of the ordinary.

Just as he thought he was achieving some measure of inner peace, Tony's phone rang, completely shattering the illusion. Jimmy jumped to his feet, heart racing, the pillow dropping from his hands to the floor. _Calm down, Palmer,_ he ordered himself, running nervous hands through his hair. _Just act normal. You have to act normal…_

"DiNozzo… What'd we get, Boss?"

_Oh, who am I kidding?_

"Homeland? Seriously?" And a few moments later: "These are the weapons that disappeared from _our_ Marine bases?"

Unable to stand still, Jimmy began to pace the room. Part of him wanted Tony to just hurry up already, so he could get moving; most of him couldn't stand the idea of watching Tony walk out that door again. The resulting tension had him biting his knuckles, a nervous habit he'd trained himself out of once he started working with dead bodies…

"Tonight?... Right. I'm on my way."

Jimmy's circuit of the room brought him back to the doorway of the bedroom just as Tony opened it and stepped through.

"Jimmy? What are you – are you okay?"

Even while expecting it, Tony's appearance still made Jimmy jump. The younger man quickly crossed his arms and looked down guiltily; his earlier resolve to act as if nothing was wrong crumbled around the reality that he was turning into a nervous wreck.

"Hey, what's going on?" Tony asked softly. He stepped forward and placed his hands on Jimmy's shoulders. "I thought you were done having nightmares…"

Jimmy couldn't help it; he flinched, visibly flinched, at Tony's words. "I – I'm sorry," he stammered, mentally berating himself for not hiding his reactions better. "I just – I was – I just –" He stopped and took a deep breath, trying to pull himself together. "I just – I thought I was, too," he finished, taking the easy way out.

"Why didn't you wake me up? I meant it, you don't have to deal with this alone…" Tony pulled Jimmy into his arms, allowing the younger man to rest his head on his shoulder.

Jimmy was glad that he didn't have to look Tony in the eye. He was ashamed of the lie, but he couldn't tell the truth about why he was so upset. "I needed some time to think," he said, and at least that part was true. "And I was trying to let you sleep as much as you could," he added. "I thought Gibbs might call you tonight."

Tony sighed and tightened his arms around his lover. "You were right," he told Jimmy. "I've got to go back tonight." He ran his hand through Jimmy's hair, a soothing gesture. "Are you going to be okay alone? I hate leaving you…"

"I'll be fine," Jimmy hastily assured him. "I – I'll probably just go back to bed once you're gone." The last thing he needed tonight was for Tony to call Ducky again!

"You sure?"

Jimmy nodded, and Tony sighed and let him go. "Okay, I've got to grab a shower before I go. Why don't you go lay down, and I'll come tuck you in before I leave?"

"You don't have that kind of time," Jimmy managed to tease, a shaky smile on his lips.

Tony rolled his eyes, but he smiled, too, glad to see that Jimmy was starting to sound more like himself.

"Go on," Jimmy urged Tony, turning him around and giving him a push toward the bathroom. "I'll get some coffee ready for you."

He managed to keep the smile on his face until Tony disappeared into the bathroom. But once the shower started up, Jimmy leaned against the nearest wall, bowing his head and taking several deep breaths. _Nice job, Palmer. Way to almost screw everything up._

He allowed himself another moment to get it together, then went into the kitchen and started the coffee maker. He pulled out a slice of pizza and popped it into the microwave, set the time, and started it. Then he went back into the bedroom and climbed into bed to wait for Tony.

A few minutes later, Tony came into the room, towel-dried hair sticking up in all directions. He pulled on the clothes that had been discarded haphazardly on the floor earlier that evening – three nights ago for Jimmy – then sat on the edge of the bed while he put on his socks.

"Here, let me help." Jimmy sat up and ran his hands through Tony's hair, smoothing it down somewhat. He knew Tony had a thing about using someone else's comb – it was almost as bad as using someone else's toothbrush. "You should really leave a comb here; you sleep over often enough. No one would know it's yours."

Tony grinned and winked at him, then gently pushed Jimmy back onto the pillows. "Maybe I like how you do my hair." He leaned down for a good night kiss.

Several moments later, much against his wishes, Jimmy pushed his lover away. "You keep that up, you're going to have to explain to Gibbs that you were late because you were seducing the autopsy assistant. You really want that conversation?"

"Tonight? No." Tony sat up and adjusted his tie. "But sooner or later, we're going to have to, you know."

"Does he suspect anything?"

"I have no idea," Tony admitted. "But he's Gibbs. I keep waiting for him to come up behind me and drop the Rule 12 bomb."

Jimmy winced at the word 'bomb,' but fortunately, Tony simply read it as a valid response to his statement. "Yeah, that's my thought. So I've been thinking about being the one to drop it first. You know, choosing the battleground and all that."

Jimmy's eyes widened. "But what if he freaks out?"

"We'll figure that out when and if it happens." Tony reached for Jimmy's hand and laced their fingers together. "We've been together for five months now, and it hasn't interfered with either of our jobs. We've got Ducky on our side. There's no official NCIS rule that says that coworkers can't date, as long as one of them isn't in a supervisory position over the other. If we have to, we'll get Vance involved."

"Gibbs won't like that much," Jimmy said cautiously.

"I know, so I hope we don't have to go that far." Tony then sighed and looked at his watch. "But you're right, I've got to get going before I really piss him off. Let's talk more about this tonight, okay?"

"Okay." Now Jimmy _really_ had a reason to follow through on his plan tonight. "Hey, there's coffee for you, and a slice of pizza in the microwave. Hopefully it hasn't cooled too much."

Tony smiled. "Thanks, love." He kissed Jimmy again – briefly this time. "I'll see you tonight – or whenever we get this case wrapped up," he amended.

"Okay. I love you."

"Love you too. Now get some sleep."

* * *

><p>Jimmy waited until he heard the front door close before he rolled out of bed and started pulling off his pajamas. Now that he was on somewhat familiar ground – he knew exactly what to expect for at least the next hour and a half – he was no longer quite so nervous. Well, not about the first part of his plan, anyway. He dug out the black long-sleeved t-shirt and dark jeans that he'd worn the night before and pulled them on, then went out into the living room.<p>

_I can't believe Tony wants to tell Gibbs about us,_ he thought in amazement as he pulled his shoes on. _That's not just admitting that he broke Rule 12 – that's coming completely out of the closet. I mean, it will be for me, too – there's only a few people who know about me – but seriously, who's going to be surprised to find out that the Autopsy __Gremlin is bisexual? But Tony… he's worked so hard at his playboy persona. What's it going to be like for him to give that up?_

_Does he really want to give that up… for me?_


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

_February 5, 2011 – 12:40am_

The first thing that Jimmy did when he got into his car was plug his cell phone into the car charger to finish charging the battery. He couldn't believe he'd let his phone run down last night. Maybe if he'd had pictures of the bomb, they wouldn't have…

_No, no sense in second-guessing myself at this point. I've got a plan, and I think it'll work. I might even manage to not get almost arrested this time, too. Tony's Rule 12 conversation with Gibbs won't go nearly so well if I'm wearing handcuffs…_

The drive to the parking lot down the street from the Art Jones Building was just as uneventful as it had been the previous night. Jimmy grabbed his phone, then popped open the trunk and took out his emergency flashlight. _Wish I'd remembered this last night. Hell, there's a better one in my kitchen, why didn't I grab that?_

But at least he had a flashlight now. He'd also remembered to grab a pair of latex gloves from the first aid kit in his bathroom. At least he wouldn't be leaving fingerprints behind this time.

Jimmy forced himself to slowly walk the three blocks south, then seven blocks west, then three blocks north again. He ducked behind the hedges of the house across the street from the office building and made his way to his hiding place where the two perpendicular lines of hedges met. There he sat and peeked through the branches to see…

_Yep, both cars are there. I need to give it until a couple minutes after they leave, then I can go in. I'll have twenty minutes, maybe a half hour even, between when they leave and when they come back. Wait, they came back so they could add something to the bomb. I'd better get in there and wait til they've come and gone again… I should turn off my phone. I don't think anyone will call me, but just in case…_

The minutes crawled by slowly. Jimmy figured he must be noticing the cold ground more tonight – it had to be him, because the temperature would be the same as last night, right? He crossed his arms and pulled his knees up, trying to conserve body heat. _Now_ he wished he had last night's hot chocolate that he'd made and hadn't even drunk. Or Tony's coffee. He'd even drink Dr. Mallard's tea, just so long as it was hot…

Finally, Jimmy saw what he was waiting for – movement across the street, from the window next to the employee entrance. He watched as the two men – Carl and the other guy, not that he knew which one was which – stood outside the window talking for a moment. Then one of them left; the other waited until the first was gone before walking to his car and leaving as well.

Exactly ninety seconds later, Jimmy jumped to his feet. He made his way carefully and quietly around the hedges, then sprinted across the street and through the parking lot. As before, he didn't stop running until he'd made it around to the rear of the building, where he couldn't be seen from the street. After a moment to catch his breath and listen for any disturbances, Jimmy came out from hiding and pulled open the window, climbed through, and pulled it mostly closed behind him, just as he'd found it. The difference tonight, other than the lack of hesitation – he knew exactly what to expect, after all – was the pair of latex gloves on his hands.

He had the flashlight tonight, but he left it switched off for now. He'd managed just fine last night with the emergency lights, at least through the call center and the stairwell. Once he entered the bank processing center, however, he turned it on to help him avoid the tables he'd run into before.

_Okay, I've got maybe twenty minutes til they're back. Maybe I should take a look at how the thing is set up now, so I can compare it to what it looks like once they've added whatever it was they had to go back for._

It was much easier to get a good look at the document sorter with the flashlight than it had been last night with just the dim emergency lights. It also helped that Jimmy had Googled the model name and number last night at Tony's computer. He couldn't find much – it wasn't like there was a huge demand for online reference manuals for the machine, given its specialized use – but he did at least find a picture of it, with its front access panels removed to show the interior workings. With a vague idea of what the inside was supposed to look like, Jimmy was hoping that he'd be able to identify anything that didn't belong – like a bomb, for example.

Kneeling down in front of the machine, Jimmy removed the first access panel to reveal an interior space crammed with bundles of wires. If it hadn't been for the thin layer of dust covering everything, Jimmy would have despaired of ever being able to understand what was going on in there; but the dust told him that nothing had been touched in here for quite some time. He replaced that panel and moved to the next.

As soon as he pulled it away, Jimmy knew that this was what he'd been looking for. There were still masses of wires, but a lot less dust; and in the center of it all was a large, off-white brick of what could only be a plastic explosive, along with more wires and strange-looking metal pieces.

_Nothing that looks like a timer… well, we knew that. Too bad, though… that's the one thing I might have been able to recognize._

Jimmy turned on his phone and, using his flashlight for illumination, took several pictures from different angles. Then he turned off the phone again and replaced the panel, careful to make sure everything looked the same as before. He made his way to his hiding place under the desk of the closest cubicle, making himself comfortable – or as comfortable as possible, anyway – before turning off the flashlight. Now all he had to do was wait…

When the stairwell door slammed open, Jimmy still couldn't help being startled, but he quickly got himself under control again. Closing his eyes to better focus on his other senses, he listened to the men –

"Jesus, Carl! Can't you be careful?"

"What? The alarm's off and there's no one's here. Unless you didn't disarm it –"

"I told you, I know what I'm doing! Besides –"

Jimmy did his best to tune out their argument, focusing more on the sounds of their work to see if he could figure out exactly what was happening on the other side of the cubicle wall. He heard the twin thumps as the two men dropped whatever they were carrying. The way they treated it, it couldn't have been too fragile or volatile – unless they were just that incredibly lucky.

"Okay, can we get it right this time?"

"Hey, it's not my fault if Hayes can't pack the right equipment."

They continued to bicker as one of the men – Carl, presumably – opened a door on squeaky hinges. Muffled thumping and creaking, accompanied by occasional swearing, filtered through the wall.

_Wait. What opens like that?_ Jimmy frowned in the dark. _The front panels lift up and away; there aren't any hinges. But what I saw has to be the bomb. So what are they doing now?_

He waited impatiently for what seemed like forever, until finally the men were finishing up the job. The squeaky-hinged door was closed again; Jimmy listened carefully to the sound so he'd recognize it again if he heard it. Then he heard the men walk down the hall and go through the door.

He almost came out of hiding then, but resisted the urge. _Careful,_ he admonished himself. _You don't want them to hear you moving around up here. Five minutes, give them five minutes to leave, then you can do what you need to and get the hell out of here._

When the allotted time had passed, Jimmy switched on his flashlight again and crawled out from underneath the desk. He studied the sorting machine again as he waited for his phone to turn on.

_Okay, let's get some pictures behind that access panel again, to make sure it's the same. Then… I need to figure out what they were just working on. Where is there a door on this thing?_

Jimmy carefully lifted the access panel out of the way again and examined the bomb again. There seemed to be more wires in there now, but it was possible he was just imagining that. He aimed his flashlight and took a few more pictures, then closed it up again. He also opened the other panel, just to check, but everything in there was exactly the same and still covered with dust.

He walked carefully around the machine. When he reached the back, he realized that the middle section of the machine opened on top; the hinges were at the rear, so it had to open from the front. He finished his circuit of the sorter and tucked his flashlight under his arm so he could use both hands to lift the top.

The cover lifted on squeaking hinges to reveal several belts, pulleys – and a whole lot more of the plastic explosive.

_Holy crap…_

When it came right down to it, Jimmy had no idea how much C-4 it would take to blow up both the building and the nearby overpass. What he did know was that the quantity of off-white material jammed into every available space was at least four times more than what he'd seen behind the access panel. Shaking his head, Jimmy pulled out his phone again and took several pictures of this section of the machine, then carefully – very carefully – lowered the lid again.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead with his coat sleeve, Jimmy took one last look, then headed for the door. He didn't have a lot of time, if this was going to work. He hurried down the stairs and out the window, then ran like hell for the parking lot several blocks away where he'd left his car. He didn't even stop to catch his breath; he just jumped into the car and started it, throwing it into gear and tearing out of the parking lot while pulling up his phone's speed dial with one hand.

He waited through the ringing and the sleepy/annoyed greeting at the other end before blurting out, "Abby? It's Jimmy Palmer. I really need your help…"


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

_February 5, 2011 – 3:32am_

The door opened to reveal Abby Scuito, wearing an old-fashioned nightgown, a floppy sleep cap, and no makeup, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and a frown on her face.

"Abby, I'm sorry I woke you up." Jimmy was talking a mile a minute; he was too nervous now to slow down. He'd passed the point where he could predict what would happen based on previous versions of this night; now he was walking the tightrope without the safety net. "I needed help and you're the only one who knows about this stuff who won't think I'm a terrorist or that I'm crazy or –"

"Don't be too sure about that, Jimmy." Abby reached out to grab him by his sleeve and hauled him into her living room. She closed the door, then dragged him to a chair and pushed him down. "Now, what's this about a bomb that's going to kill everyone?" Her tone was very clipped and precise; her voice was dangerously quiet. This wasn't happy-bouncy Abby, with her pigtails and bright smile; this was deadly-serious Abigail Scuito, who could kill and leave no forensic evidence behind.

In answer, Jimmy pulled out his phone and brought up the first of the pictures, then handed the phone to Abby.

"What the…" Her voice trailed off as she began scrolling through the pictures. She was still frowning, but there was an element of puzzlement to her features now. "Jimmy, how did you get these? Where is this?"

"I took them," he said simply. "I was there, I was hiding when they finished setting it up. This is what happened to the explosives that those Marines stole off their bases." He completely ignored her second question; he couldn't risk her or anyone else going anywhere near the Art Jones Building until he knew it was safe.

"Why are you bringing these to me?" Abby looked at him strangely. "We need to get these to the Bossman –"

"No!" Jimmy was half out of his chair before he caught himself. Sitting back down, he turned imploring eyes on Abby. "Abs, listen, I need you to trust me. If we send these to Gibbs now, they'll all go charging in there and get themselves blown up. There's stuff going on that they don't know anything about, and it'll kill them."

Abby crossed her arms again, staring at him in anger – and Jimmy couldn't help but notice that she was still holding his phone hostage in her hand. "Stuff they don't know about," she repeated, her voice flat.

"Yes."

"But you know about it."

"Yes. Well, mostly." He still didn't know exactly why the bomb had detonated last night, but he suspected that Ziva or Gibbs might have had something to do with it. He didn't want to mention that, though. One didn't get on Abby's good side by putting down her silver-haired fox, that was for sure. "But they won't believe me."

Abby raised an eyebrow. "You expect _me_ to trust you, though."

"No." Suddenly feeling the weight of four nights' worth of fear, frustration, and grief, Jimmy pulled off his glasses and buried his face in his hands. "No, I don't expect you to just trust me based on nothing. But I don't know how I'd make you believe me, so… so I'm just asking." He looked up at her, her face blurred by more than just his poor vision. "Please, Abby. I need your help. Tell me how to defuse that thing." He nodded toward the phone still in her hand, which held the only proof he had.

"Jimmy." The anger was gone from her face now, replaced by worry. "You're asking me to _not_ tell Gibbs and the others that they're in danger, and to trust you to save them. No offense, but… you're not exactly Agent of the Year material." Her crossed arms seemed to be more of a self-hug now, rather than a sign of wrath. "You've got to give me something, Jimmy. I can't just –"

"Tony and I broke Rule 12."

A look of surprise crossed her face before being overtaken by outright shock. "You and – you and _Tony?_ _Together?_ Like, as in together, together?"

Jimmy nodded.

"Seriously? You and Tony? But –"

"Yes, me and Tony," Jimmy snapped, suddenly angry. He put his glasses back on so he could glare at her. "As in, he was at my apartment before he got called in tonight. In my bed, with me. But then Gibbs called, and Tony had to go" – the anger drained away, replaced by desperation – "and if I tell you how I know what I know you'll think I'm crazy too and you won't help me and we'll _both_ lose the people we love!"

"Jimmy! Jimmy, wait, I didn't mean –" Not knowing what to say, Abby grabbed Jimmy's arms and pulled him to his feet so she could envelope him in one of her giant Abby-hugs. "I didn't mean – you know, that you and Tony wouldn't make a good couple or anything, I just didn't know that either of you swung that way." She pulled back and looked at Jimmy's face. "You could have told me, you know."

"We were afraid to, Abs," Jimmy admitted. "We didn't want to tell anyone until we figured out what to do about Gibbs and Rule 12. Ducky guessed, but I don't think anyone else has."

"Fair enough." Abby looked at him for a moment longer, then let go so she could flip Jimmy's phone open. She examined the pictures again, frowning in concentration. Then her head came up again. "Who else thinks you're crazy? Who else have you told?"

"What?"

"You said I'll think you're crazy, too. So you told someone else. Who else knows about this, Jimmy?"

"I –" Jimmy's eyes darted around the room frantically, as if looking for an escape.

"Jimmy, I appreciate that you trust me enough to tell me about you and Tony," Abby began. "But I'm asking you to trust me more, and tell me everything. Because you're asking me to trust you with their lives, and I can't give you that level of trust without getting it back." She pulled him over to her couch, where she sat down next to him and put her hand on his arm. "Tell me how you got these pictures. I need to know everything."

Jimmy bowed his head, struggling to control the despair he could feel washing over him. He was running out of time, and it would take even more time to tell Abby, and she probably wouldn't believe him – though she might; this was Abby, after all – and even if he convinced her to show him how to defuse the bomb, he almost certainly wasn't going to have time to do it tonight. And then the night would start over again – if he was lucky – and he and Tony wouldn't have had their earlier conversation; and he didn't know if he could arrange matters so that the subject would come up again in exactly the same way. And worst of all, he would have to endure another night of watching Tony die…

Abby shook his arm a little. "Come on, Jimmy, talk to me." She held up his phone. "Or I'm going to have to call Gibbs and send these to him – well, to Timmy, anyway – only you said that would get them killed, and –"

Jimmy shook his head. "No, don't call. I'll tell you. Just" – he laughed, though there was no humor in it – "just remember, I told you it would sound crazy."

Abby's bright green eyes met his. "Try me."

He took a deep breath and jumped in. "I know what's going to happen because this is the fourth time I've gone through this night. I've already seen Tony and the others die three times."

He continued on, turning his head to stare at one of Abby's bowling awards on the wall so he didn't have to see the disbelieving look on her face. He told her about seeing the explosion on the news, and how he found out that Gibbs and Ziva were dead. About going to the crime scene and saving Fornell, only to find that Tim and Tony were beyond saving. About waking up that next night, thinking he'd lost Tony forever, only to have his lover tell him that it was just a nightmare – and then watching the nightmare repeat itself.

He described going to the office building on the third night, though he was careful not to mention anything that would give away its location. When he told Abby about how Agent Sacks had treated him, he felt her hand tighten on his arm and he remembered that she didn't like the arrogant FBI agent any more than Tony did. He finished by describing his plan for tonight – to find out how to defuse the bomb and get there before the agents did, so that by the time the target – he didn't tell her who it was – drove by, the remote detonator would be rendered harmless.

Jimmy didn't know what to do, once he ran out of words. He stole a glance at Abby out of the corner of his eye. She was looking at the pictures on his phone, her still face not giving anything away. Since Abby's face was normally an open book, he found himself worrying about what might be going on behind those expressionless green eyes…

"In the movies," she said finally, breaking the silence, "the main character is usually able to prove that they're caught in a time loop by predicting what someone is going to say next, or that the phone is going to ring, or something." Abby looked up at Jimmy. "What do you have, Palmer?"

Jimmy closed his eyes and shook his head. "Nothing, until it's too late," he admitted. "I didn't pay much attention to the TV that first night until the news report came on, and the second night, I didn't turn it on until after it happened. And last night I was stuck behind Tony's desk." He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I've got nothing."

Abby narrowed her eyes. "Maybe not…" He watched her face while an idea took form in her mind. "If I call Tony right now, where will he be?"

"Abby, you can't call him!"

She held up her hand. "I won't tell him anything about – this," she promised. "But you would have been at NCIS about this time last night, right? So tell me what I'd find if I went there right now."

Jimmy looked at the clock. "It might be different," he warned her. "I don't know what might have been changed because I went there last night, other than the part where they knew where to go earlier than they should have."

"Doesn't matter. Just tell me what you know."

Jimmy told her what he remembered of the events at NCIS the night before. Then he watched as Abby dialed Tony's number and put the call on speakerphone, warning Jimmy to keep his mouth shut.

Tony answered. _"Agent DiNozzo."_

"Hi, Tony!" Abby spoke in her normal, overly-excited tone.

"_Abs? What are you doing up so late? Something wrong?"_

"Nope, everything's fine." Abby narrowed her eyes at Jimmy as she spoke. "Whatcha doing?"

"_Working the stolen weapons case. We got a good lead tonight. Why?"_

"Just wondering. Timmy there with you?" Jimmy listened as Abby cast her line, fishing for information.

"_Yeah, we're all here, Abby. What are _you_ doing up so late?"_

"Bugging you." Jimmy couldn't help but smile at Abby's technique; it was so… well, Abby. "Who else is there?"

"_What do you mean?"_

"Well, you guys were working this with the FBI, weren't you? Or are you working behind their back, since they took the lead?"

"_No, we got the case back. Fornell and Slacks are here; Stiller and the rest of the ATF team are out running down another lead."_ Tony's voice sounded suspicious. _"Why are you asking?"_

"No reason." Abby grinned slyly. "What's Palmer up to?"

"_Sleeping, I hope. It's past 3am, Abby!"_

"Your bed or his?"

There was a stunned silence on the other end. Then: _"How did you find out?"_ Tony whispered into the phone.

"I have my resources." Abby looked smug, Jimmy thought. "Don't worry, I won't tell. But _you_ are going to tell me everything. I want details, Tony!"

Tony sighed audibly. _"Is this all you called for, Abby? I kinda can't talk about it here…"_

"Later, then. You two can come out with me tomorrow night – uh, Saturday night – and tell me all about it."

"_We'll see how the case goes, and… uh… look, Abby, I _really_ can't talk right now."_

"Alright. Call me tomorrow, Tony. G'night!"

"_Goodnight, Abs."_ There was a click as the line disconnected.

As soon as the call ended, the smile dropped from Abby's face. Jimmy looked at her nervously. "Well?"

Abby chewed her lip as she thought. "It's not enough to qualify as proof, speaking scientifically –"

"Abby, please –"

"_But,_" Abby continued, overriding his interruption, "it's a hell of a coincidence. And the Bossman doesn't believe in coincidences."

"Rule 39." _That seems to be coming up a lot lately,_ Jimmy thought.

"Right." Abby sat still a moment longer, then nodded her head decisively and jumped to her feet. "Come on, Jimmy," she said, pulling him to his feet. "Let's give you a crash course on bomb disabling techniques!"


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

_February 5, 2011 – 3:51am_

Not long after, Jimmy sat next to Abby at her computer as she studied the enlarged photographs they'd downloaded from his phone. She kept muttering to herself, things like "blasting cap" and "initiator" and "explosive booster," none of which Jimmy really understood although he'd heard the terms in movies. She seemed somewhat confused by the overall design of the bomb, but when he asked what was wrong, she shook her head.

"It just seems really… odd," she said unhelpfully. "You said this took out an entire office building?"

Jimmy nodded. "And then some," he added, declining to mention exactly what else it had destroyed.

"Huh. Maybe I'm missing something." She shook her head again. "Could there have been more C-4 hidden somewhere else?"

"More?" Jimmy considered what he knew of the design of the sorter. "I suppose there could have been more stuffed into the inside somewhere that I didn't see."

"Huh," Abby said again. Then: "Well, it doesn't really matter for our purposes. What you're going to be looking for is right in here." She pointed to the mess of wires and strange metal shapes that had been behind the front panel of the machine.

"Okay, what wire do I cut?"

"It's not that simple." Abby pointed to one part of the picture. "See this? This is your signal receiver. Cutting the connection from it to the detonator is going to be the easiest way to keep it from going boom when the target gets into range."

"Okay…"

"Now here's the problem. I don't have enough information to tell you for sure which wire is connecting the receiver to the detonator. This bundle of wires here" – she pointed – "is blocking my view."

"Crap." Jimmy sat back and ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

"I also can't tell if there's more than one, or if any of them are decoys."

"Damn it!" Jimmy stood up and started to pace. "What do I do now?"

Abby jumped up after him. "You sit back down and let me show you how to figure it out when you see it," she said, dragging him back to his seat.

Jimmy shook his head. "Sorry. I'm just frustrated."

"Never apologize, Palmer, it's a sign of weakness." The retort came out automatically as Abby opened several windows on her screen, each showing the detonator/receiver connection from a different angle – none of which was the one she needed.

"Okay." Jimmy rubbed at his face with his hands. "Show me."

He paid careful attention as Abby traced the path of several different wires, some of which were likely decoys, while at least one was the actual connection between the detonator and the receiver. But when she tried to explain how he'd be able to tell the difference, her convoluted explanation left Jimmy confused.

"Abby, Abby, I'm not getting it." He leaned back and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. "I… I don't think this is going to work."

"Don't give up on me, Jimmy."

"I'm not giving up," Jimmy insisted. He glanced at his watch. "But I'm running out of time if I'm going to try this tonight."

"Okay, take me with you."

"No!" Jimmy shook his head frantically. "No, Abby, I can't. If I screw this up, I don't want you to get hurt."

"We'd just start over again, wouldn't we?"

"I don't actually know that, Abs." Jimmy shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what happens if _I_ die. We might get another chance – or killing me might end it. If you died with me, Gibbs would kill me!"

"Er, Jimmy –"

"I know, I know." Jimmy got up to pace again. "But I can't risk it. I'm sorry, Abby, but I just can't stand the thought of watching you die, too. I –" His voice broke. "I've seen too much death these last few days." His shoulders slumped, and he turned away, raising his hands to hide his face.

He felt Abby's arms wrap around him from behind – not her usual flying hug-tackle, but a gentle embrace. "Are you sure we can't call Gibbs?" she asked quietly.

Jimmy nodded. "I told them last night, and they still died," he said. "I'm not sure what they did, so I can't warn them not to do it again. I thought if I could get there first…"

Abby gave him one last half-strength squeeze, then let him go. "Come on. Let's look at this again. Even if you can't get there tonight, there should still be tomorrow night, right?" Her voice held just a hint of a pleading note.

"Yeah." Jimmy followed her back to the computer and sat down. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself. "Okay, here's what we've got so far. Correct me if I'm wrong, okay?" Abby nodded, and Jimmy started from the beginning. "This is the receiver, and this is the detonator…"

Perhaps it was because they'd acknowledged that it wasn't likely to happen that night, but once the pressure to act was eased somewhat, Jimmy found himself better able to grasp what Abby was telling him. Likewise, Abby was able to slow down and take her time with her explanations, which allowed Jimmy to ask questions to clarify his understanding. In a surprisingly short amount of time, all things considered, they had narrowed Jimmy's choices down to three different wires, and Abby explained what he should look for when he went to disarm the bomb.

"If I were to guess right now, I would go with this one," she finished, pointing to one of the wires. "But take your time, look it over, and if you need help, you can always call me."

"Uh, not if it's tomorrow night, Abby," Jimmy pointed out. "You're not going to remember any of this."

"Hmm, you're right." Abby stood up, her hand under her chin, and began to pace the room. Jimmy watched her with worried eyes. Suddenly, she seemed more subdued, sad almost. Acting on impulse, he stood up and went after her.

"Abby?" He stepped in front of her, halting her in her tracks. "What's wrong?"

She snorted. "Other than that we're going to lose our friends in just a little over an hour?"

"Yeah." Jimmy winced. "Abby, I mean –"

Abby laughed bitterly. "It's okay, Jimmy, I know what you mean." She gestured to the couch. After they were both seated, she picked up a pillow and hugged it. "I wish Bert were here," she sighed.

Jimmy's lips twitched in a slight smile. "Nothing like a flatulent hippo to make you feel better."

Abby smiled, but the corners of her mouth drooped slightly. "Yeah… especially since Bert's the only one I've ever told this to."

"Huh?"

"If you have to do this tomorrow night, and you need help figuring out what to do with the bomb, you need to be able to ask me," Abby stated the obvious. "But you're not going to have time to convince me to help you all over again. So you need some way of convincing me in a hurry that you really are stuck in a time loop and that I need to help you because I've already helped you before."

"Abby, if I had come right out and said that tonight, you would have thought I'd gone crazy."

"Right, that's my point."

"And I still can't predict for you when the phone is going to ring or what's on TV right now. I told you, by the time I actually know –"

"I know, I know." Abby waved her hands to silence him. "So what you need is something that will prove to me in a hurry that you and I have had a conversation that I have no memory of, and the only way to do that is for me to tell you something that you could only have heard from me."

Jimmy was beginning to realize what she was getting at. "Abby, you don't need to tell me anything really personal. I mean, if you tell me… oh, I don't know, who your favorite cartoon character was as a kid, or some story about when you were in grade school –"

"Then I'll suspect you of having been snooping in my journal or doing a background check or something." Abby frowned at him. "This is me we're talking about, you know, and I'll suspect that you and Tony and McGee are trying to play some kind of joke. The three of you together could probably find out quite a bit about me that someone else might be fooled by, but I wouldn't be." She shook her head. "No, if you need to convince me to trust you, then the only way I'd believe it is if you told me something that I know I've never told anyone, because that would mean that I trusted you enough to tell it to you."

"Do you?" Jimmy watched her face carefully. "You said yourself that I haven't managed to prove it to you even now, that it could have been coincidence –"

"It could have been, but it's not," Abby said firmly.

"You trust Rule 39 that much?"

"No." Abby took Jimmy's hands in hers. "I trust my own eyes and ears. Do you have any idea how you looked when I had Tony on the phone?"

Jimmy felt his face heat up. "I – I think I can guess."

"And then there's how you looked when you talked about watching them die…" Her hand came up to catch Jimmy's chin when he started to bow his head. She caught his hazel eyes with hers, using her other hand to squeeze his. It was then that he realized how hard he'd been clenching her hand, and he forced his hands to relax.

"I'm no Gibbs, but I'm still pretty damn good at reading people," Abby told him. "And there's some things that just can't be faked. Now that I think about it, I think I've been seeing you two the whole time, but I didn't put it all together because I wasn't expecting it." Half her mouth lifted in a quirky grin. "Just do me a favor, okay?"

"What?"

"After you tell me what I'm about to tell you… make sure you tell me again about you and Tony. I promise I won't tell anyone."

"I will, Abs." Jimmy squeezed her hand, and looked into her eyes. "I trust you."

"Okay." She looked down then, and took a deep breath. "When I was ten years old…"

* * *

><p>Jimmy waved at Abby as he got into his car, and watched her wave back. He made sure to drive at a normal speed until he was out of sight; but as soon as he turned the corner at the end of the street, he floored it. He didn't have much time.<p>

He'd told Abby that he would wait until tonight started over again before attempting to sneak in and disable the bomb; but that was before he'd heard her story. Now, he was more determined than ever to get there in time. Even if he got caught in the process, he'd still rather do that than go through another night like this.

_If the night repeats, and I have to tell her what she told me…_ Jimmy bit his lip as he slowed for a red light. There was no cross traffic, so he sped up again and drove through it. _It was hard enough for her to tell me. I don't think I can face her when she doesn't remember any of this, and tell her that I know her worst secret. I'd rather not have her know that I know… I wish she hadn't felt like she _had_ to tell me…_

The almost nonexistent traffic coupled with Jimmy's lack of regard for traffic laws meant that the trip back to Rothstown was accomplished in record time. Jimmy started to head for his usual parking lot, but a glance at his dashboard clock dissuaded him.

_I don't have time to run that far. I can park on that side street near the house where I watched the building. My car doesn't exactly stand out; even if the agents show up before I can get back to it, I doubt anyone will notice._

Jimmy ran across the street and, without pausing, went straight for the window. He briefly debated leaving it open to save time, but decided that might draw unwanted attention from anyone passing by. After pulling the window closed, he ran for the stairwell door, turning on his flashlight so as to not risk tripping on the stairs.

_No time for subtle. Just get in, cut the wire, and get out. Or get blown up. Either way, Tony lives._

He crashed through the door and pounded up the stairs, feeling his heart hammering in his chest. He really wished he was in better shape – not that he was out of shape, but he certainly hadn't spent much time running stairs as part of his cardio routine. Jimmy's lungs were on fire by the time he rounded the third floor landing, and by the fifth, his legs felt like he had bricks tied to his ankles. He paused for a second, doubled over, on the sixth floor landing to catch his breath, looked up – and his heart missed a beat.

Halfway down the stairs leading to the seventh floor, two large men carrying flashlights stared, mouths gaping, at the young man on the landing below them. The shorter of the two recovered first.

"Son of a – _get him!"_

Animal instinct took over. Jimmy fled down the stairs, leaping the last few steps to the landing below. He hurried down the next flight, fighting the urge to look back over his shoulder. He knew they were coming – he could hear them thundering down the stairs after him. As he reached the fourth floor landing and turned to go down the next flight of stairs, he caught a glimpse of one of them out of the corner of his eye. If he'd had the breath to spare, he would have screamed.

The man was closing the distance, but Jimmy was still ahead. If he could just make it to the window – but wait, he'd closed it. Maybe he could leap through it. He knew it wasn't as easy as it looked in the movies, but maybe it wouldn't be _too_ bad…

He was several steps above the second floor landing when the man chasing him stopped, took aim – and hurled his flashlight right at Jimmy's head.

All Jimmy knew was that suddenly, something struck the back of his head with enough force to knock him off his feet and down the last few stairs. He was barely able to bring his arms up in time before he crashed face first into the floor, his glasses snapping in two. Dazed by the impact, he still tried to get to his feet and run, but by then the man had rushed down the stairs and grabbed hold of the back of his coat.

Before Jimmy could react, the man wrapped a thick arm around Jimmy's throat in a chokehold, cutting off not just his air but the flow of blood to his brain as well. In a matter of seconds, darkness descended upon him; without even a chance to struggle, Jimmy passed out.

* * *

><p>And just what <em>was <em>Abby's secret? I promise, you'll find out... eventually. *evil grin*


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

_February 5, 2011 – 4:37am_

This was _not_ his bed, Jimmy could tell right away. It was hard, and cold, and rough where his cheek was pressed against it. He was lying on his stomach on what felt like a thinly-carpeted floor. He opened his eyes, but instead of seeing Tony next to him, or even his alarm clock on the nightstand, all he could see was darkness with a blurred patch of light off to his right.

He must have groaned or made some other sound, because part of the light detached itself from the rest, waving from side to side a bit as it made its way toward him. It wasn't until the light was almost on top of him that he realized it was one of the men, carrying a flashlight.

A booted foot prodded him in the ribs, encouraging him to roll over. This Jimmy did, groaning in pain, as he squinted to try to make out the features of the man above him. The man was pointing the flashlight right at Jimmy's face, however, which meant that Jimmy couldn't see a thing beyond the bright light.

"Who are you, and why are you here?"

Jimmy identified the voice as the man from earlier in the night whose name he didn't know. He cautiously raised a hand to shield his eyes from the flashlight, hoping that his eyes would adjust enough to get a glimpse of his captor.

His silence must have annoyed the man, because the boot came back to make its acquaintance with Jimmy's ribs again, a little harder this time. "I _said_, who are you?"

Jimmy closed his eyes. His only hope was… oh, who was he kidding? There _was_ no hope for him. The best he could manage would be to delay these two long enough that they'd still be in the building when the multi-agency task force arrived and set off all the traps. That would end with all of them dead; then either Jimmy would start all over again, or justice would at least be partially served with the death of two of the terrorists.

"Answer me, you little –"

"Jeez, Charlie, let it go already," the other man interrupted. Jimmy recognized Carl's voice. "Who gives a crap who he is? Just get him over here so I can finish and we can get the hell out of here."

Charlie grabbed Jimmy's coat in both hands and hauled the lighter man to his feet. Jimmy's world spun as he was half-led, half-dragged several feet toward the other patch of light. In that light he could see the other man and –

_Oh, God –_

Carl had apparently been quite busy, both before and after Jimmy had arrived. There was now a covered garbage can sitting at one end of the sorter; Jimmy couldn't tell without his glasses, but he'd be willing to bet that it had been wired together with the rest of the bomb. _There's where Abby's extra 'boom' came from,_ he thought, remembering how the forensic scientist had questioned the explosive power of the bomb in the pictures.

That, he was guessing, was what had brought Charlie and Carl back to the building this time. Just Jimmy's bad luck to run right into them. Or maybe not _just_ Jimmy's bad luck. Maybe the team had run into them last night; it was probably around the right time, depending on how long Jimmy had been unconscious…

Carl picked up a roll of duct tape and gestured to the chair at the operator's end of the sorting machine. "Sit him down, and I'll make sure he doesn't get up again."

"I kinda thought that was the point of wiring the chair?"

"I don't want to take the chance that the kid's gonna try to be a hero. Can't have him standing up and setting it off while we're still here, right?"

_Oh, God…_

Jimmy tried to pull away, but an open-handed smack from Charlie caught him right in the temple and sent him reeling. The larger man pushed him down onto the chair – Jimmy heard it creak slightly as his weight hit it – and Carl started wrapping the duct tape around his chest and the back of the chair, pinning his upper arms to his sides in the process.

"So if we're taping him to the chair anyway, what was the point of wiring it?"

Carl shrugged as he taped Jimmy's wrists together. "I like things that go 'boom.'"

_Oh my God, I'm gonna die._

Charlie started packing up their equipment while Carl checked over his handiwork. "Campbell said Myers got her transmitter in place, finally. Bet she doesn't know she's coming in last," Carl commented casually.

"She might not," Charlie responded. "There's no guarantee Garrett's man is going to take this route. Her senator is as good a candidate as any of them to set it off." He zipped up one bag and turned to start packing the other. "Who's your money on, if it's not Garrett?"

"I don't know, I don't track their movements. But I'll tell you who I hope it is – Sigler."

"But his guy's just a lobbyist."

"A lobbyist who's got a lot of influence with the Senate Armed Services Committee. I've heard that they're actually considering his proposals…"

Jimmy tried to pay attention to the names that Carl and Charlie were tossing back and forth, but he was having a hard time concentrating. It wasn't just the multiple blows to his head, either. _Oh, God, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, and these guys are placing bets on who's going to die with me, and I already know the answer… _

The two men finished their tasks and left, taking the light with them. Jimmy barely noticed. He was deep in shock, his heart racing, his breathing shallow and too fast. It was taking all his self control to not start struggling in the chair, because he didn't know how sensitive the trigger was…

_I'm gonna die. Tony and the others are going to be here any time now. They'll come through one of the doors and set off the bombs downstairs. We'll all die._

He closed his eyes and fought to get his breathing under control. The thought that this end might not be _the_ end was of very little comfort; the large degree of uncertainty regarding how the time loop worked was uppermost in his mind right now. It was something that Jimmy hadn't thought about until Abby brought it up, and he'd tried not to dwell on it. But now there really wasn't any other choice.

_If this does end with me dying – I mean, if my dying ends the loop – then this accomplished nothing. What was the point? At least I won't have to figure out what to do with my life after Tony. But Tony and the others will still die… unless…_

The idea that occurred to Jimmy was so terrifying that for a moment, he couldn't draw a breath at all. _What if I set it off now, before they get here? Then it'll just be me. No one else has to die. Just me…_

He opened his eyes and stared at the sorting machine, packed full of explosives, with even more – he assumed – set up at the other end of the machine.

_I was willing to take the chance when I thought I might cut the wrong wire,_ he thought. _This is almost the same thing. I must be sitting on some sort of pressure-sensitive detonator or something. All I'd have to do is tip the chair over. That's all. I've fallen out of my chair dozens of times. How much harder can this be?_

It seemed so simple, and yet… Jimmy sat frozen in place, unable to move a muscle.

_Tony, I'm sorry. I don't think I can do it. _He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to convince himself to lean back in the chair, just far enough to unbalance himself. It would just take a second, he knew, if he did it quickly…

_I can't. I can't. _Jimmy bowed his head and rested his forehead on his bound hands as he began to cry quietly. _I'm sorry, Tony, I can't do this. I want to – no, I don't, I don't want to die, but I don't want anyone else to die, either. But –_

Abruptly, his head snapped up. Had he just heard something?

_Oh, God, they're here. That sounded like tires squealing out there. That's Gibbs, I'd bet money that's Gibbs, and any minute –_

Jimmy ducked his head and squeezed his eyes shut. It was stupid, he knew, but he didn't want to see it coming. _Make it quick, just make it quick, and please, please let me wake up next to Tony in the morning –_

But the seconds crawled by, and nothing went boom. Jimmy whimpered as the tension increased. What was taking so long? Not that he was eager to die, but the waiting was driving him crazy…

The door to the stairwell slammed open. Jimmy flinched away from the sound, his heart leaping in his chest when he heard the chair squeak slightly with the movement. He forced himself to stay still, straining to hear past the pounding in his ears. What had happened? Did Charlie and Carl forget something else?

Flashlight beams bounced off the walls, coming closer. Then a figure stepped out from around the corner, light in one hand and gun in the other, and paused while she quickly assessed the corridor for threats –

"Ziva!"

She lowered her gun and stared at him, then quickly began making her way to him. "Palmer, what –"

"Ziva, no!" Jimmy struggled to hold on to the last of his self control. All he wanted was for them to save him, to get him out of there, but – "You have to get out of here!" he shouted. "There's not enough time, just go! _Please!"_

Ziva rushed to him anyway, quickly holstering her gun as she moved. "The chair, it is wired?" she asked unnecessarily as she walked quickly around him, flashlight aimed at the lower part of the chair.

"Yes, I think it's wired into that thing." Jimmy nodded his head toward the document sorter. "There's all kinds of stuff in there and I think in the trashcan and _there isn't time_ for you to do anything about it! Just go! Get everyone out of here!"

Jimmy hadn't even noticed the others converging on the sorter from different directions until Tony dropped to his knees in front of him, an expression of shock and horror on his face.

"Jimmy! How did this happen?" The agent ducked his head to look under the chair, presumably at the detonator underneath. "How the hell did you get involved in this?"

"Tony, please, you have to listen to me." Tears dripped onto his bound hands as Jimmy pleaded with his lover. "You guys have to get out of here. There's a car coming along any minute with a remote detonator, and it's going to blow this thing sky high. There isn't time to do anything. Please, please just go…" Jimmy was sobbing by this time, in fear and anguish. "I can't watch you die, just go, please…" he whispered.

The moment Jimmy had mentioned the car, Gibbs had turned to McGee, but the younger man was already pulling out his cell phone and dialing. "I'll get the roads closed, Boss. One mile radius around this place." He moved a few steps away, holding his hand over his ear to block out any distracting sounds – like Jimmy's hysterical weeping, for example.

Jimmy looked over Tony's head at Gibbs. He knew it was pointless to ask Gibbs to leave – the former Marine wouldn't leave a man behind, even one not on his team – but the man could be coldly practical when need be. "Gibbs, get them out of here. Please –" It was hard to speak through the tears and the crying, but he had to convince him. "Please, they don't need to be here – it's too dangerous –" His chest tightened painfully. "Please –"

To his immense relief, Gibbs nodded. "DiNozzo, McGee, outside," he ordered, coming around to crouch next to Ziva, out of Jimmy's line of sight. "Ziva –"

"No way." The words were spoken quietly but clearly, coming from the man kneeling next to the chair, still intently studying what was underneath.

"Tony, please!" Jimmy cried.

Tony lifted his head so he could look Jimmy in the eyes. "I'm not leaving you."

"DiNozzo, that's an order –"

"No."

"Damn it, DiNozzo! You –"

"Boss, would you have left Shannon?"

Jimmy heard the startled gasp from Ziva, saw McGee's jaw drop. He could only imagine the look on Gibbs' face – or his own, for that matter. He watched, wide-eyed, as Tony removed the knife from his belt buckle and reached for Jimmy's hands.

"Don't move, Jimmy," Tony whispered, as if the rest of his team wasn't watching with mouths agape. He carefully slid the knife, sharpened edge up, between Jimmy's wrists underneath the duct tape, and began slowly sawing his way through. "I'm not leaving you," he repeated, glancing up at his lover's face once before returning his attention to his work with the blade. "We'll get you out of here. Just stay calm, okay?"

Behind him, Jimmy could hear Ziva muttering to herself in Hebrew as she refocused her attention on the detonator. McGee finished his phone call and came back, kneeling to Tony's left and shining his flashlight underneath the chair to provide more light. Jimmy still had no idea what Gibbs was doing, which worried him just a little. Provided they survived the night, Jimmy wasn't entirely certain they would survive the lead agent's wrath. He kept his head down, watching Tony's progress through the tape.

"Ziva, how's it coming?" Tony asked, keeping his voice level. Jimmy recognized the tone; it was what he thought of as Tony's 'post-Palmer meltdown' voice, the quiet, calm tone that had soothed him out of countless nightmares over the last several weeks.

"Give me a moment." Ziva's voice betrayed her tension. "I believe I can disconnect the pressure sensor here, and then we can cut him free."

Tony, in the meantime, had finished cutting through the tape binding Jimmy's wrists. He passed his knife to Gibbs, then took Jimmy's hands in his and squeezed gently. "Hey. Look at me." He waited until Jimmy's eyes lifted to meet his. "You're doing good. Just a few more minutes."

The reminder of how much time was passing jolted him. Jimmy's hands tightened on Tony's as panic took hold of him. "You don't have a few minutes, Tony. You need to get out of here!"

"Shh, stay calm, Jimmy."

"I can't!" He was starting to hyperventilate now. "Please – please go – run – please –" But Jimmy's body betrayed him; even as he begged them to go, he couldn't let go of Tony's hands.

"Palmer." This was Gibbs' voice. Jimmy heard the other man stand up behind him; he all but hovered over the chair. "We're almost there. Get ready."

Jimmy's hands shook in Tony's. Could he – could _they_ really get out of this? He felt Gibbs' hand rest very lightly on his left shoulder; looking up, he saw that Gibbs was holding the knife, ready to slice through the duct tape binding him to the chair.

"Wait…" Ziva whispered. Then – "There! Got it!"

Jimmy started to sob in relief as Gibbs started cutting his way through the tape, holding Jimmy's shoulder to keep the young man still. Ziva stood and pulled her own knife from the sheath on her right calf, which she used to start on the tape on Jimmy's right side.

As soon as the last strand of tape parted, Jimmy tumbled out of the chair to land in Tony's arms. Tony held him close even as he started to pull them both to their feet.

"How – how d-did you find me?" Jimmy's voice was as shaky as his legs; Tony was supporting at least half his weight. Gibbs came up on Jimmy's right side and pulled the younger man's arm across his shoulders, helping to keep him upright.

"Abby called. Said she was afraid you were going to do something stupid." Gibbs wasn't the type to pull punches. "Looks like she was right."

"B-but –"

"You left your phone on. We were able to track you by GPS, and she warned us about the doors." Tony firmly took hold of Jimmy's chin and turned the younger man's face to his. "Jimmy, what do you think –"

He was interrupted by a most unwelcome sound outside – the sound of multiple vehicles screeching to a halt in the parking lot below.

McGee went to the window and looked down. "Boss!" he exclaimed. "It's Fornell and Stiller's teams!"

Jimmy didn't understand why McGee sounded so upset until Ziva started to curse in Hebrew and Gibbs started pushing them toward the doors. "Go! Go!" the former Marine shouted. "They don't know about the doors!"

Terror struck him then like an electric shock. He stumbled, but got his feet under him and pulled away from Gibbs' and Tony's arms, the adrenaline rushing through him giving him strength he hadn't had a moment before. They started running for the stairwell, Ziva and McGee in the lead, Tony and Gibbs following behind Jimmy as they ran for their lives.

Jimmy followed the twin flashlight beams ahead of him, but when they got to the stairs, he had to slow down so he didn't miss the first step. Tony saw the difficulty his lover was having without his glasses and came up alongside him, grabbing onto Jimmy's hand to guide him. Jimmy squeezed Tony's hand hard as they made it to the first landing and turned to take the next flight of stairs, Gibbs just two steps behind.

They made it down two more flights, but when they started down the next set of stairs, Jimmy overstepped the first stair and lost his balance. Tony tried to keep hold of his hand and Gibbs made a grab for him, but momentum and gravity were not on their side. With a terrified scream, Jimmy tumbled down the stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom.

Ziva and McGee had been a flight ahead, but they turned back at Jimmy's cry of pain as Gibbs and Tony hurried down the stairs after him.

"Palmer! You alright?" McGee got to him first and started looking him over for injuries.

Jimmy couldn't breathe – he'd had the wind knocked out of him – but that wasn't what had him panicking. It was the excruciating pain in his left knee, coupled with the knowledge that while they were trying to help him, they were allowing the FBI and ATF agents to get closer to the building, that frightened him almost past the point of rational thought. He tried to tell them, but he couldn't speak, couldn't make himself understood –

Desperately he stretched his hand out – past McGee, past Tony, who was kneeling at his side – and grabbed Gibbs' wrist, just below the man's orange watchband.

"Palmer, what –"

Once he had Gibbs' attention, Jimmy let go and quickly signed, _Go. Run. Leave me._

"Like hell!" But even as he said it, Gibbs realized what Jimmy was getting at. "McGee, David, get out there, stop them from getting in!"

The two younger agents didn't argue. They might not know what Jimmy had said, but they could see the bizarre angle that Jimmy's knee was bent at and could draw their own conclusions. McGee and Ziva took off down the stairs as Gibbs and Tony positioned themselves on opposite sides of the injured autopsy assistant and prepared to lift him.

"No." Jimmy's whisper was barely audible, which made it easier for the two agents to ignore. They each pulled one of Jimmy's arms over their shoulders, then grabbed the back of his coat with one hand and underneath his legs with the other. It was going to be painful as hell, with no way to stabilize the knee, but there wasn't time to worry about that.

"Leave me," Jimmy begged just before they picked him up. He turned terrified eyes on Tony. "Please…"

Tony looked him straight in the eyes. "Never," he said simply, before turning to Gibbs. "On three, Boss. One… two…"

They never made it to three.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

_February 5, 2011 – 12:02am_

Jimmy awoke to a sensation of weight on his chest and stomach, screaming in his ears, and a sharp pain on one side of his face. Then something struck the other side of his face, causing a similar pain and making his head rock to the side. The screaming stopped.

He opened his eyes and saw Tony hovering above him, a frightened look on his face. Jimmy realized that Tony was straddling him, causing that feeling of weight on his lower torso. Maybe that was why Jimmy felt so short of breath; he was gasping for air, but couldn't quite get enough.

"Jimmy! God, Jimmy, are you okay?" Tony's voice seemed to echo in Jimmy's ears.

"Tony?" Jimmy's voice was extremely hoarse. He swallowed painfully and opened his mouth to try again –

Memories came flooding back – the chair, Tony's hands in his, running through the building, and then _– _he screamed, giving voice to the hurt and the fear and the frustration of having failed yet _again_, after getting so close…

"Jimmy!" Tony's hands were on his shoulders, holding him tight, shaking him. "Jimmy, wake up! _Please!_"

The desperation in Tony's voice finally broke through, stabbing like a dagger into Jimmy's heart and soul. He opened his eyes again, panting for breath, his throat on fire. _That was me screaming before, too – _the thought popped into his head out of nowhere. No wonder Tony looked so scared.

"Jimmy? Are you okay?" Tony's hand touched the side of his face, gently this time. Jimmy knew that Tony would never hurt him; the slap had always been an act of desperation, a last resort when everything else failed to wake Jimmy from his nightmares. Tony stroked his cheek, brushed his hair back from his forehead. "Jimmy, say something, please?"

He looked so anxious – terrified, really. Jimmy raised a shaking hand to take Tony's, and pressed his lips against his lover's fingers. "I love you," he whispered.

Tony closed his eyes. "Jimmy, oh, God." He pulled Jimmy's hand to his own lips and returned the kiss. "Are you okay? You had me so worried…"

"Tony, I'm sorry." Jimmy's eyes were leaking tears down the sides of his face. He wasn't just apologizing for waking Tony up; he had failed his lover last night, though the other man thankfully had no knowledge of it.

"Hey, it's okay. You have nothing to apologize for." Tony still held Jimmy's hand, which was trembling in his grasp. He looked down at the man still shaking from the aftereffects of what had to be a horrific dream, and said the first thing that came to mind. "But I thought you were done having nightmares…"

His words tore a sob from Jimmy's tortured throat, and then the young man turned his face away from him and began to cry.

Tony rolled off of Jimmy and pulled him into his arms, rocking the younger man gently. "Shh, shh, it's okay, it's okay," he murmured, burying one hand in Jimmy's hair as he held the sobbing man close. "I'm sorry, Jimmy, I'm so, so sorry…"

His words just made Jimmy cry harder. _I want so bad for this to just be a dream,_ he thought, clinging to the man he loved, the man he'd lost four times now in as many days. _I'm not sure I can take much more of this…_

As the sobbing began to still, Jimmy became more aware of how he was feeling physically. His head was pounding, his throat burned, and his stomach was definitely not happy with him. A familiar sensation made him gasp, but Tony, mistaking it for another sob, squeezed him closer.

"Tony…"

Tony brushed his fingers along the back of Jimmy's neck, a touch that was usually soothing – or arousing, in the right circumstances – but right now it just added to Jimmy's growing discomfort. "Shh, it's okay," he whispered.

"Tony, I – I'm going to be sick –"

Jimmy was later impressed by – and grateful for – the speed with which Tony sat them up, threw Jimmy's arm around his shoulder and his own arm around Jimmy's waist, and hauled him into the bathroom. At the time, all he knew was that one moment, he was lying in bed, and the next, he was kneeling in front of the toilet and throwing up for what felt like an eternity.

_I haven't even eaten anything for – what – four days?_ he thought, between bouts of retching. _This is so not fair…_

And then he realized. He should really be grateful that, upon waking, he still had Friday night's dinner to throw up. Because if his body _didn't_ reset itself to its original state at midnight, he wouldn't be here right now. He'd be scattered into tiny pieces, and so would Tony, just like what he'd seen the second night… That thought did nothing to help the state of his stomach.

_Positive thoughts, Palmer._ He closed his eyes, but when he did, all he could see was… _Yeah, positive thoughts. I'm positive I'm going to throw up again..._

Jimmy was dimly aware of Tony's comforting presence, of the cool washcloth that Tony held to the back of his neck. Funny, he'd always imagined that Tony would be the type to bail out if stomach contents started making an appearance, but here he was, with a bedside – toiletside? – manner that would make Florence Nightingale proud.

When he was pretty sure there was nothing left to come up, Jimmy collapsed back against the bathtub, raising a shaking hand to his forehead. The light… _When did the light get so bright in here?_

He heard water running in the sink again, and then Tony was kneeling next to him, wiping his face with the cold cloth. Jimmy sighed in sheer relief at how good it felt.

Tony handed him the cloth. "Here," he said. "I'll be right back."

Indeed, he was back just moments later, holding a glass of water to Jimmy's lips. "Rinse your mouth out," he instructed. "Then we'll see about getting you back into bed –"

In the bedroom, Tony's cell phone started to ring.

Jimmy looked at Tony, but the agent just shook his head and held up the glass again. "It can wait," he said firmly.

By the time Tony got Jimmy to his feet, the phone had quit ringing. Tony had to half-carry Jimmy into the bedroom; the younger man was dizzy and weak, and simply could not stand on his own. He collapsed onto the bed, all but holding on to it to stop the room from spinning.

Tony knelt on the floor at the edge of the bed, one hand stroking Jimmy's hair. "Are you going to be alright?"

Jimmy didn't think he could lie his way out of this one, but he was spared the need to do so when the phone started ringing again. "You need to get that," he mumbled. "Rule 3."

"It can wait," Tony repeated. "Rule 1."

It took Jimmy a moment to figure out which Rule 1 Tony meant. "But I'm not your partner," he objected.

"You're not?"

He didn't have the energy to be embarrassed. "I mean I'm not your partner at work," he clarified.

"Doesn't matter." Tony leaned forward to kiss Jimmy's forehead. "Besides, even Gibbs is unreachable sometimes."

Jimmy was touched that Tony would risk Gibbs' wrath to take care of him. It was so tempting to ask Tony to stay with him; the thought of sending him out to die again tonight made his stomach twist. _I can't keep doing this. I don't know how much more I can take…_

The phone quit ringing – and then immediately started again.

"Tony, you have to answer it," Jimmy insisted, feeling like he was signing his lover's death warrant. "Go on. It's okay."

Tony laid his hand briefly on Jimmy's forehead, then stood and picked up the phone from the nightstand. He stepped out of the room and pulled the door closed behind him as he answered. "DiNozzo," Jimmy heard him say, and then the door clicked shut.

Wondering how the conversation would differ from the previous nights – Tony had always answered promptly before – Jimmy attempted to get up and move to the door to eavesdrop. He only got as far as lifting his head, though, before dizziness forced him back down.

_What is wrong with me?_ he wondered. _I wasn't sick any other night, and it's not like I could have caught a cold that's only now showing symptoms. I've already proved that everything except my memory resets itself when the loop starts over. I wouldn't even be here if that wasn't the case… God, my head hurts…_

Jimmy groaned when Tony came back into the room, letting the light in with him. Quickly seeing his lover's distress, Tony closed the door and felt his way to the bed in the darkness, climbing in beside him. He pulled Jimmy closer; the younger man laid his head on Tony's shoulder, taking comfort in his presence.

"Who was it?" Jimmy mumbled for form's sake; he already knew, of course, but he couldn't discuss it with Tony until Tony had actually told him.

"It was Gibbs." Tony kept his voice low out of deference to Jimmy's aching head. He gently stroked one hand up and down Jimmy's back; now that Jimmy was no longer nauseous, he found Tony's touch soothing.

Keeping his eyes closed – the vertigo wasn't as bad that way – Jimmy tried to find a way to make the situation easier for Tony. He knew that Gibbs' senior field agent was torn between two loyalties – to his boss, whom Jimmy suspected Tony saw as a surrogate father figure, and to his lover, who could barely function on his own just now. Tony had no way of knowing of Jimmy's own inner turmoil – the logical side that knew he couldn't predict the team's actions if Tony wasn't with them, versus the sick desperation that Jimmy felt whenever he pictured Tony walking out that door to his certain death…

He tried, not entirely successfully, to put that out of his mind. "You have to go, don't you?" he asked quietly.

Maybe Tony didn't know his thoughts, but he was acutely aware of Jimmy's physical response to the stress he was under. So while he heard Jimmy's too-casual question, he also felt the tension in his shoulders and the trembling of the arm draped across Tony's chest. "Do you want me to stay?"

Jimmy shook his head slightly. "No, you need to go," he insisted. "I'll be okay, go on."

Tony frowned; Jimmy knew that he certainly didn't look okay. "I'm going to get into the shower," he said slowly. "Yell if you need me, okay?" He waited for Jimmy's weak nod before carefully untangling himself from the other man and slipping out the door.

As the water started to run, Jimmy took a deep breath and pushed himself to a sitting position. His hands gripped the sheets under him as the bed seemed to lurch; if he didn't know better, Jimmy would swear that he was on a boat in rough water, and a not particularly steady boat, at that.

He scooted to the edge of the bed closest to the door, then attempted to stand and walk forward. What actually happened was that he got to his feet, swayed, and stumbled wildly in what was, by pure chance, the right direction. He caught himself on the doorknob and leaned his forehead against the wall, waiting for the vertigo to die down. When the floor felt more-or-less steady, he opened the door, blinking hard against the rather dim light of the living room lamp. He paused for a moment to aim himself toward the couch; then he closed his eyes and staggered forward, making it a good two-thirds of the way before his legs gave out.

By the time Tony came out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel around his waist, Jimmy had just managed to crawl the rest of the way to the couch.

"Jesus, Jimmy, what do you think you're doing?" Tony cried in dismay as he rushed forward to help the other man up onto the couch. "Why didn't you just stay in bed?"

Jimmy leaned against Tony's shoulder, panting hard. He couldn't believe how hard it had been to take those few short steps. How in the world was he going to…? "Would it sound really stupid if I said I was trying to help you get ready?" he laughed weakly.

"Yes, it would," Tony said bluntly. He pulled Jimmy's arm over his shoulder in preparation to support his weight. "Let's get you back –"

"No, please," Jimmy protested. He pulled his arm away. "Just leave me here, it'll be easier."

Tony glanced at the couch. It was a little old and worn, but was perfectly comfortable. "Okay, then," he agreed. He reached over and pulled Jimmy up against him. "Look, I don't like leaving you here like this…" he started to say.

"It's okay, Tony. I know you need to go." _I knew before you did,_ he continued in the privacy of his own head.

"It's not okay," Tony protested. "But you're right. I do need to go." He pressed his lips to Jimmy's forehead in a gentle kiss. "How about if I call Ducky?" he suggested. "I really don't want to leave you alone like this…"

Jimmy's first thought was that with Ducky present, he wouldn't be able to get anything done. But his second thought was coldly practical – _What did you think you were going to accomplish tonight, anyway? You can't even take two steps on your own!_

Giving in to practicality, Jimmy nodded.

* * *

><p>A few minutes later, Jimmy was laying on the couch with his eyes closed when he felt Tony's hand touch his shoulder. "Hey, Jimmy?"<p>

"Mm hmm?"

"You wanna help me get some clothes on you? I know Ducky's a doctor, but I really don't think he'll want to examine you that closely…"

"Oh, right." Another thought occurred to Jimmy. "Hey, bring my glucose meter out here, would you?"

"Sure." Tony helped Jimmy to sit up, then assisted in pulling a faded t-shirt over his head. "Er… do you need help with that?"

Jimmy knew that for all Tony's courage under fire, the man did not like needles. Jimmy had always taken care of his glucose testing and insulin injections in private. "No, I'll let Doctor Mallard do it," he reassured him. "He'll want to test me himself anyway, so no sense in doing it twice."

Tony nodded in relieved agreement as he helped Jimmy into a pair of plaid pajama bottoms. Then he disappeared into the bedroom, coming back with not just the requested equipment, but with a pillow and warm blanket from the bed as well. He helped Jimmy settle into a comfortable position on the couch, then disappeared again and came back with Jimmy's glasses and a worn paperback book, which he left on the coffee table. "In case you get bored," he explained with a gentle smile.

It was another twenty minutes before Ducky arrived. Jimmy was surprised that Tony insisted on waiting with him. "Gibbs is going to kill you for being so late," he said. "Go on, I'll be okay til Doctor Mallard gets here."

Tony just shook his head from where he sat on the floor next to the couch, holding Jimmy's hand in his, rubbing the back of his hand with his thumb in a gentle caress.

Giving in, Jimmy closed his eyes. The soothing, repetitive touch and Tony's comforting presence felt like heaven, especially when compared to Jimmy's last few days. He squeezed Tony's hand and felt him return the pressure; and in that moment, the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place and he knew what he had to do. When this was all over and Tony was safe, Jimmy decided, they were going to have a little talk. It was time to stop hiding their relationship. Gibbs was just going to have to get over it. If he couldn't, or wouldn't, then Jimmy would leave NCIS. It wasn't his first choice, but he would do it if he had to – because his first choice was right here, right next to him, and Jimmy would do anything, give up everything, to stay with him.

Because on another night, in a reality that no longer existed but was no less real for Jimmy, Tony had done the same for him.


	21. Chapter 21

I re-uploaded Chapter 20 to fix a few formatting issues. is acting kind of weird lately. Sorry for the confusion!

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty-One<p>

_February 5, 2011 – 3:27am_

The living room was dark the next time that Jimmy opened his eyes. He lay on his side, staring at a blank television screen, breathing slowly and trying to pull his sleep-scattered thoughts together.

_I must have fallen asleep before Doctor Mallard got here,_ he thought, feeling just a little ashamed for being such a terrible host. _I wonder if he's still here? I hope he's not sleeping in the chair, it's not very comfortable… Maybe he just checked up on me and then went home._

Speaking of check ups… Jimmy closed his eyes and focused on his body, on how he was feeling physically. His headache was almost gone. He opened his eyes and carefully turned his head from side to side. No vertigo; the walls and floor stayed right where they belonged. His throat still hurt, and his mouth was dry, but before he could do anything about that, he realized, he really needed to use the bathroom.

It took more effort than he had expected to push himself upright and climb to his feet, but he did it. He even managed to take a few unsteady steps. But then the weakness caught up with him; his legs turned to jelly, and Jimmy collapsed to his hands and knees with a loud thud, gasping for air as if he'd just run a mile.

"Mr. Palmer?" The lamp next to Jimmy's old armchair was switched on, revealing Ducky sitting in the chair with the throw blanket from the back of the couch across his lap. He set the blanket aside now and hurried forward to kneel down next to his assistant. "Are you alright? What are you doing up?"

Jimmy laughed shortly. "I'm not up, I'm down," he pointed out.

Ducky sighed. "Well, I suppose that answers my first question," he conceded. "Let me try again. Why are you currently on your living room floor?"

Jimmy ducked his head, feeling his face turn red. "I was trying to get to the bathroom," he admitted.

"Well, come on, then." Ducky took Jimmy's arm and helped the younger man to his feet. He couldn't support as much of Jimmy's weight as Tony could, but fortunately Jimmy was not in as bad a shape as he had been earlier. With Ducky's assistance, he was able to stumble across the room to the bathroom.

For one horrifying moment, Jimmy was afraid that Ducky would insist on helping him _in_ the bathroom, but to his immense relief, his supervisor allowed him his privacy. He was waiting when Jimmy came out, and helped guide his young protégé back to the couch. As Jimmy had expected, Ducky then insisted on a brief exam, checking his vital signs and asking about Jimmy's symptoms. Jimmy answered as truthfully as he could; he only fudged when Ducky asked him if he knew why he'd gotten so ill.

"I don't know, Doctor Mallard," he answered, although he was beginning to think that maybe he _did_ know. _It must have something to do with being blown up last night,_ he thought, carefully keeping his mind only on what had happened to himself and not the rest of the team. _The body resets, but the mind doesn't – and I was already scared half to death and panicking and hurt even before the bomb went off. So going from sound asleep at midnight to major adrenaline rush at 12:01… Poor Tony, for having to wake up to _that…

"Mr. Palmer." Ducky's voice brought him back to the present. The older man sat down on the couch next to him. "Jimmy, Anthony told me that you'd had a nightmare and woke up screaming before you became ill…" His voice trailed off, inviting Jimmy to speak without demanding a response.

Jimmy wondered if Tony had told Ducky about his earlier nightmares this time, as he had before, on Jimmy's second Friday night. _I've got to come up with a better way to keep track of all this. If it goes on much longer, I'm going to be counting _weeks_ of Friday nights._ He sighed and looked down at his hands, trying to decide what to say.

Ducky must have felt that he'd gone too far. "My apologies, Mr. Palmer. I didn't mean to pry. I simply wish to help if I can."

Jimmy closed his eyes, trying to hide the flood of guilt that washed over him. _You did help, you just don't remember it,_ he thought, reminded of their conversation that other night, and of what came after. _And in just a few hours, you're going to get a phone call, and you're going to want to go to the scene, only you won't because you'll feel responsible for me and I won't be able to go because I wouldn't even make it out to the car…_

"Jimmy?"

He looked up with a start, a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. "I'm sorry, Doctor Mallard. I'm just kind of… distracted tonight."

"I'd noticed," Ducky said dryly. He patted Jimmy's shoulder before standing up. "Well, can I get you anything? I was thinking about making something warm to drink – some hot chocolate, perhaps?"

"That – sounds good," Jimmy answered, wondering if Ducky was going to add anything to it this time. He figured he should trust the doctor's judgment – if Ducky thought he needed to relax, he was probably right. "Thank you," he added.

As Ducky wandered into the kitchen, Jimmy reached for the blanket and wrapped it around himself. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine Tony there with him, kneeling in front of him the way he had the second night, when he thought Jimmy had had a nightmare. Or last night, when he'd looked into Jimmy's eyes. _"I'm not leaving you,"_ Jimmy heard again in his mind.

_What went wrong?_ Jimmy absent-mindedly took the mug of hot chocolate from Ducky and sipped at it carefully, noting that it was just hot chocolate this time and nothing more. He was aware of his supervisor taking a seat at the other end of the couch, his own mug in hand; but Ducky didn't push him to speak, instead allowing Jimmy time and space enough to think.

_I walked right into their hands,_ he thought, remembering the surprise he'd felt when he looked up and saw the two men on the stairs. _I didn't even get a chance to look at the bomb, so I still don't know if I can defuse it. And Abby called Gibbs – but I can't blame her for that, because she was right, I _was_ doing something stupid. I think we still might have made it out of there if the FBI and ATF hadn't shown up – and if I hadn't fallen down the stairs…_

In his mind, he called up the timeline he'd put together at Tony's computer and considered what he now knew about the terrorists' movements that night. _They came back for a third time, and added something more to the bomb. That must be what happened to Tony and the others on the third night – they ran into them, and somehow it ended with the building being blown up. So tomorrow night_ – for Jimmy had accepted that there was nothing he could do tonight, except plan ahead – _tomorrow night, I can't show up there until after they leave the third time. That's going to be cutting it awfully close._

_They were talking about other targets last night. They weren't just counting on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs passing by; they were setting up other targets as well. So even if I somehow warn someone about the chairman, there's no telling who else might drive by and set off the bomb, or when…_

He was a little more aware this time, when Ducky took away the mug and his glasses. Jimmy shifted position so he could lay his head on his pillow, but curled his legs in so that Ducky could still sit at the other end of the couch instead of the less comfortable chair. Blinking sleepily, Jimmy continued to work on his plans for the next night, making a list of things he had to do until finally his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

><p>Some time later, he awoke to the sound of Ducky's phone ringing. Biting his lip, Jimmy listened as Ducky quietly answered the phone, moving into the bedroom so that his conversation wouldn't disturb his patient.<p>

_Doctor Mallard, I'm so sorry,_ Jimmy thought, tears stinging his eyes. _You had no idea this was coming, and you have no way of knowing that it's only going to last for a couple __of hours until it all starts over again. I wish there was some way to spare you the pain – I guess I could have turned your phone off, but I didn't think of it in time._

He tried to wait patiently, but Ducky's conversation tonight seemed to be taking longer than it had before. That may have been because Ducky had to ask more questions tonight, not having the prior knowledge of Jimmy's 'dream.' But as the minutes went by, Jimmy began to worry. Was Ducky okay?

Jimmy pushed away the blanket and slowly climbed to his feet, reaching out to grab his glasses from the table. He took a few hesitant steps. His legs shook, but he was able to remain upright. Smiling grimly at this small sign of success, he staggered to the bedroom door, knocking softly before opening it.

Ducky stood at Jimmy's bedroom window, holding his phone to his ear with one hand. His eyes widened when he saw Jimmy, but he didn't say anything. Instead he moved quickly to Jimmy's side and urged the younger man to sit on the bed. He was still listening to whatever was being said on the other end of the line, so Jimmy held his tongue.

He studied his supervisor's face as Ducky nodded unconsciously in agreement with the other person. Ducky looked concerned, yes, but he showed no signs of the hopeless worry he'd shown at the crime scene. Of course – how many times had he heard that the team was in danger, and yet they came out alright? Or maybe he was hiding his true feelings out of concern for Jimmy. Either way, Jimmy still felt a stab of shame that he couldn't have stopped the tragedy tonight, that he couldn't spare Ducky from having to experience his friends' deaths yet again.

"Of course, Director," Ducky spoke quietly into the phone. Jimmy looked up in surprise – he'd expected the caller to be Ducky's FBI friend. "I understand. Please let me know… thank you." He disconnected the call, slipping the phone into his pocket before resting his hand on Jimmy's shoulder.

"Mr. Palmer, are you alright?"

Jimmy didn't want to do this again; he didn't want to watch Ducky suffer. But what choice was there? Trying to explain everything at this point would just make Ducky worry that Jimmy was having a psychotic break, and the man didn't need any more bad news tonight. Jimmy consoled himself with the reminder that when the night started over again, he would have another chance to make sure that Ducky – or he – would never have to go through this again.

"I'm okay," he answered Ducky's question; then he asked one of his own. "Is something wrong?"

Ducky lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed, his hand still on Jimmy's shoulder. "Mr. Palmer, I don't want to upset you unduly. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, but… there's been an incident."

Jimmy didn't have to fake his reaction, though it was caused more by the look on Ducky's face than by his words. He raised his hand to cover Ducky's hand on his shoulder. "What happened?" he remembered to ask.

As Ducky told him about the explosion and the MCRT's possible involvement, Jimmy bowed his head to hide his face. He'd thought that maybe Ducky would notice that something wasn't quite right with his reactions, but he needn't have worried. Even knowing what he knew, Jimmy found that hearing it from Ducky, in the careful tone he used to talk to the bereaved, still cut him right to the heart. He realized that even though this conversation would never have happened once the night looped around again, it was still possible that someday, Jimmy would have to sit and listen to Ducky, or maybe Gibbs, telling him that Tony wouldn't be coming home that night…

Ducky explained that after he'd heard the news from a colleague at the FBI, he had immediately called Director Vance. The director would call them as soon as he had any news. In the meantime, Ducky suggested that Jimmy should lay down and get some rest. Jimmy, realizing that Ducky was focusing on his patient in order to distract him from those whom he could not help, acquiesced to Ducky's suggestion, although he insisted that he'd rather lay on the couch than in the bedroom.

"Are you sure you're comfortable here?" Ducky asked as he pulled the blanket over Jimmy's shoulders.

Jimmy nodded. "I –" He hadn't meant to speak, but once he started, Ducky encouraged him to finish. "I don't want to wake up in there without him," he whispered.

Ducky smiled down at him sadly and patted his arm. "Just rest, lad," he said softly. "I'll wake you if there's any news."

As Jimmy closed his eyes, he wondered if Ducky would indeed be waking him with the bad news, or if the night would start over first. He huddled under the blanket, his tears soaking into the pillow, and hoped that both he and Ducky would be spared the experience…


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty Two

_February 5, 2011 – 12:01am_

Jimmy lay quietly in bed, eyes closed, listening to the soothing sound of his lover's breathing next to him. He felt that he'd never really appreciated these moments enough, had never realized just how comforting it could be to hear another human being, to feel another's presence beside him. He rolled over slowly and opened his eyes.

Tony was sleeping on his side with his back to Jimmy, wrapped up tight in the blankets. As Jimmy's movement created some slack, Tony automatically pulled more of the covers his way. Jimmy smiled. Despite the fact that his lover was an unapologetic blanket thief, Jimmy would always rather wake up next to him – even shivering with cold – than wake up alone. And after his last few days, Jimmy was coming to appreciate just how precious those awakenings were.

Unable to resist, Jimmy scooted closer and wrapped his arms around Tony from behind, sliding one arm under his head to act as a pillow while the other went around the other man's chest and pulled him against Jimmy's body. He pressed his lips to Tony's shoulder in a gentle kiss, then closed his eyes and lost himself in the feel of Tony's warm body touching his.

He felt a little chagrined when Tony lifted his head and turned slightly to try to see his face. "Hey, you okay?" he whispered sleepily.

"I'm fine." Jimmy snuggled closer against Tony's back. "I'm sorry I woke you. I just… I just wanted to…" He hugged Tony just a little harder. "I've missed you," he whispered. "I just wanted to hold you…"

Tony ran his fingers lightly across Jimmy's arm. "I know. I've missed you, too. It's been a long time since we've been able to have a night together without something getting in the way."

_You have _no_ idea,_ Jimmy couldn't help but think. "That's why I wanted this," he said quietly, squeezing Tony again. "I don't know when we might get a chance to do this again." Keeping his voice low helped him to disguise the way his throat tightened at those words.

But Tony wasn't a trained investigator for nothing. He turned slowly in Jimmy's arms and brought one hand up to touch his cheek. "You sure you're okay?" he asked, concern showing in his eyes even in the dark. "I thought –"

"I'm done with having nightmares," Jimmy interrupted. He slid his fingers under Tony's chin and tipped his face up for a long, slow kiss. When their lips finally parted, he looked into Tony's eyes and smiled sadly. "Or at least I'm done being scared of them."

"There's nothing wrong with being scared, Jimmy," Tony gently reminded him. "Everyone gets scared sometimes. The trick is not letting it rule your life."

"I know."

"I know you know." Tony smiled. "What I don't know is if you know how proud I am of you. And I'm not just talking about the dreams."

Jimmy had thought he was going to be able to get through this night without crying, but the tears that came to his eyes spoiled that idea for him. He didn't care. "What?"

"I'm not just talking about the nightmares," Tony repeated. "I'm talking about this. About you talking to me. You didn't use to trust me like this."

"Tony, I trusted… oh." Jimmy stopped when he figured out Tony's point. He felt his face turn red, and was glad that it was dark in the room. "I just…" He took a deep breath and went for it. "I hated that I was such a mess before. When we were kidnapped, and then I started having nightmares and I felt like all you ever saw of me was me falling apart and I just hated it. I was so afraid that that's all you would see and you'd get sick of feeling like you had to take care of me and –"

"Shh, shh." Tony put his finger to Jimmy's lips, silencing him. "Jimmy, no. You're selling yourself short here. That's hardly the only thing I've seen about you these last few months." He winked, and Jimmy's blush deepened. "And maybe I take care of you, but you take care of me, too. That's how this works, right?"

Jimmy nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Tony leaned closer to kiss Jimmy, then laid his head on Jimmy's shoulder and snuggled into the younger man's side. Jimmy was surprised. Usually, Tony was the cuddl_er_, not the cuddl_ee_, last night – Tony's last night, not Jimmy's – notwithstanding. Jimmy held Tony close, enjoying the feeling. He was well aware that all too soon –

The ringing of Tony's cell phone, while expected, still brought a groan to Jimmy's lips. Tony, who of course had not been expecting the call, echoed the sentiment as he rolled over to grab the phone off the nightstand.

"DiNozzo," he answered, laying his head back down on Jimmy's chest and holding the phone to his other ear. "What'd we get, Boss?"

Jimmy closed his eyes, allowing the familiar words to fade from his consciousness as he reviewed his plan for the evening. _This is the last time,_ he said emphatically to himself. _This ends tonight – _this_ tonight. I refuse to let it go any farther._

"Tonight?"

Tony's question to Gibbs had nothing to do with Jimmy's internal monologue, but Jimmy found himself nodding anyway. _Tonight,_ he agreed silently.

"Right. I'm on my way." Tony hung up without saying goodbye, a habit he'd picked up from his boss. Then he propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at Jimmy.

"You've got to go, I know." Jimmy decided to spare Tony the trouble of explaining. "It's okay." He reached up and pulled Tony's head down, brushing the other man's lips with his. "Go get in the shower. I'll get some coffee ready for you."

"Thanks, Jimmy." Tony returned the kiss, with interest. Then he pulled away slightly. "It's just so hard to leave you when you're laying there like that…"

Jimmy laughed. "Get going, DiNozzo," he ordered, grabbing a pillow and swatting Tony with it. "Or else you're going to have to explain to Gibbs that you were late because you were seducing the autopsy assistant."

"There are worse things… but not in the middle of a case," Tony conceded. "Alright. Just get some clothes on before I get out, or I can't be responsible for my actions."

"Promises, promises…"

Jimmy waited until Tony had disappeared into the bathroom before he climbed out of bed. He dressed quickly, remembering to put on his pajama bottoms and Power Rangers t-shirt instead of the jeans and long-sleeved shirt he would wear later on. As far as Tony should know, Jimmy planned on going back to sleep once he was gone.

Out of habit, he went to the TV first and turned on ZNN to check the date. _Still February 5__th__… again,_ he confirmed, then turned it off and went to plug in his cell phone. Starting Tony's coffee and pizza came next. Remembering something he'd thought previously, Jimmy selected a different slice this time. Maybe it was just superstition… but then, how did he explain this whole crazy cycle of events? Maybe superstition was important.

Jimmy remembered something that Tony had told him years ago, when the senior field agent was working undercover dating Jeanne Benoit. _If you always do what you've always done,_ Tony had said, _then you'll always get what you always got._ Jimmy was determined to get something different this time.

By the time Tony stepped out of the bedroom, fully clothed, Jimmy had the coffee and pizza ready to go on the coffee table.

"Thanks," Tony said, pulling Jimmy to him. "You didn't have to do that, you know."

"I know." Jimmy returned the embrace, focusing on the feel of Tony's body in his arms, Tony's arms around him. This might be the last time… "This is me taking care of you, okay?"

"Okay." Tony gave him one last squeeze, then stepped back and picked up his coat. "I'll be home when I can."

"Stay safe out there." The desperation that had been in Jimmy's voice on previous nights was gone now. He knew that Tony would be safe, because Jimmy was going to do whatever he had to in order to make it happen.

"I will. I love you."

"I love you, too."

* * *

><p>When Tony was gone, Jimmy closed the door and leaned against it for a moment. He had a lot to do tonight, it was true; but since most of the action was slated for later in the night, he found that he had some time to kill.<p>

He went to his desk and found a pad of paper and a pen. He figured he should probably do this first, as he didn't know how long it would take. Once he was done, he could see how much time was left before he had to leave.

Putting the pen to his lips, Jimmy stared at the blank sheet before him, carefully considering his words. Then he nodded to himself and put the pen to paper. Slowly, with several long pauses while he sought to find the best way to express himself – not always his strong point, at least not verbally – he wrote:

_Tony,_

_If everything goes well tonight, you'll never see this – I should be able to get home and tear it up before you do. If it all goes bad, you'll also never see this. It's if things go badly for me but not for you that I'm writing this. If I don't make it home, there are some things I want you to know._

_If I were to tell you how I know what I know, you'd think I'm crazy, and I'd like to leave you with a better impression of me than that. Please just trust me when I tell you that I knew what I was getting into, I knew the risks, and I chose to do it anyway. The alternative – losing you – was something that I just could not live with._

Tears flowed down Jimmy's face as he continued to write; by the end, his hand was shaking so badly that he had to concentrate to form each letter on the page. He hoped it wasn't too obvious. He was studying to be a doctor, after all – his handwriting was _supposed_ to be messy, right?

He folded the paper, sealed it into an envelope, and wrote Tony's name on the outside. Then he slid it into his coat pocket. If things really did go that badly, he fully expected that his apartment would be searched for evidence that he was involved in the terrorist plot. He didn't want to leave the letter here for someone else to find first; he'd stop at Tony's apartment on his way to Rothstown and leave it there.

Next, Jimmy took another piece of paper and, after some thought, scribbled down another message and a phone number. This he also put into his coat pocket; he would need it later. When he was finished, he checked the clock and was surprised to find that it was only a little after one o'clock. What was he going to do for another two hours?

He glanced around the apartment, looking for something to keep him busy so he wouldn't have time to worry. When the stack of dirty dishes in the kitchen caught his eye, he couldn't help but laugh. Why not?

So for the next hour and a half, Jimmy attacked all the chores that he'd been avoiding around the apartment for the last four days – ever since he'd completed them only to have the accomplishment disappear in the first time loop. He cleaned out the refrigerator, grateful for his foreknowledge of what containers were safe to open, and what should just be pitched without a second glance. Then he washed the dishes, including those rescued from the refrigerator. He cleaned out under the sink, getting rid of the empty bottles of cleaning product underneath. He wiped down the counters. _Then _he took the garbage out to the dumpster, leaving a new, empty bag in the garbage can under the sink.

Next he went into the bathroom to scrub it down. He grimaced when he thought of all the time he'd spent in here last night – worshipping the porcelain god, his friends had called it in college. At least that horrible time now only existed in Jimmy's memory. He had been so embarrassed, getting sick like that in front of Tony…

_Then again, that's part of what Tony was talking about, isn't it? Trusting him to stay, even when I'm not exactly the best person to be around. It's not easy – I mean, Tony could have his choice of men _or_ women, so why would he want someone like me? I keep thinking I'm going to chase him off, but I think he's been trying to tell me to stop worrying about it because he knew what he was getting with me… and there must be something about me that keeps him here even when I think he'd be better off without me…_

Those thoughts occupied Jimmy's mind as he tackled the unpleasant task of cleaning the bathroom. Then he stripped off his pajamas and started the shower, glad that all the disgusting work was behind him so he could get clean once more.

Finally, he stood in the living room, dressed in the same dark jeans and black long-sleeved t-shirt he'd worn for the last several nights – _That's one good thing, I haven't had to do laundry!_ – and went through his mental checklist.

_Let's see… I've got my NCIS cap, which is the best I can do to try to keep from leaving any hair behind for Abby to trace. Gloves to keep from leaving fingerprints. Shoe __prints… yeah, can't risk those._ He went to his closet and dug in the back until he found an old pair of sneakers, old enough that he didn't mind throwing them away after tonight.

_Flashlight and multi-tool, check. Car keys, wallet… should I leave my wallet and ID? No, if I'm caught, they'll know who I am anyway, and besides, I'm wearing the hat. Cell phone… I should turn off my phone now, not that anyone's going to call me, but I'd still feel better for not having to worry about it…_

He reviewed the plan one last time, looking for any potential pitfalls. None occurred to him, so he emptied his backpack of its load of textbooks and packed it with – hopefully – everything he would need tonight, including his good sneakers to change into afterwards. Then he grabbed his coat, slung the backpack over his shoulder, and went out the door.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty Three

_February 5, 2011 – 3:39am_

Tony's apartment was dark and cooler than normal – most likely, the agent had turned down the thermostat the last time he'd been here, knowing that the stolen weapons case would probably keep him from home for an extended period of time. Jimmy pulled the envelope out of his pocket and hid it in the middle of a stack of unopened mail on Tony's coffee table.

He thought about what he'd written as he closed the door behind him and locked it. If he succeeded tonight, he ought to be able to get here and retrieve the letter before Tony would be able to come home. If he didn't succeed, then the letter would no longer exist when the night started over. And if the night was only partially a success – well, that was why he'd written the letter.

_Here's hoping this works – because I don't want to have to do this again._

His next stop was several miles out of his way, but Jimmy was careful not to exceed the speed limit as he drove down the interstate. He kept telling himself that he had plenty of time, that he'd planned for this, that everything would work out – and that getting pulled over by the state police would _not_ help matters any.

Finally, Jimmy pulled into the parking lot of a large truck stop several miles past Rothstown, just off I-66. He'd seen billboards for this place before. It wasn't just a fuel stop; it was a truck driver's dream in terms of amenities. Showers, laundry facilities, wireless internet – and pay-per-page fax machines, which was the feature that Jimmy was most interested in just now.

He didn't know if the place had security cameras, so he made sure to keep his head down as he walked in. A large sign directed him to the back, where two fax machines waited. _A dollar per page? Seriously?_ But Jimmy didn't argue; he just fed his dollar into the appropriate slot. Knowing that the fax would be traced back to this location and that someone would eventually come to investigate, he pulled out his keys and used the end of his car key to punch in the number – the fax machine in the bullpen at NCIS.

He'd thought long and hard about how much to write, but in the end, he'd kept it short and to the point: _1. Remote transmitters have been planted in cars of public officials including Chairman of JCS. 2. When you figure out where the bomb is, don't use the doors, they're rigged to explode._ He'd done his best to disguise his handwriting, but it probably wouldn't fool an expert if said expert had a sample of Jimmy's writing to compare it to. Jimmy would just have to make sure that he never came under suspicion.

Jimmy waited just long enough for the machine to confirm that the fax went through, then left. Once he was inside his car, he tore the note into pieces. As he drove back down I-66, he rolled down his window and let the pieces blow away in the wind. It was the first time he had ever intentionally thrown litter out of his car, but Jimmy couldn't feel too guilty about it.

_That's the first part done. With any luck, the team will spend some time trying to trace the fax and figure out who sent it, so that will hopefully give me more time to get in and out before they show up._

Jimmy had considered adding the exact location of the bomb to his anonymous note, but he finally chose not to. He couldn't be 100% positive that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs would change his plans, even with the warning; Vance had said that the man's sister was in the hospital, and Jimmy knew just how strong the bond between siblings could be. He also couldn't be sure that one of the other targets wouldn't go driving by while the team was inside. He didn't have actual proof that the FBI and ATF agents had set off the traps the night that he got blown up; it was entirely possible that McGee and Ziva had stopped them, only to have the senator or the lobbyist or whoever drive by at the same time.

The main bomb was the real danger, because of that uncertainty; Jimmy knew that if the agents were aware of the bombs on the doors – as they were now, thanks to his fax – it would be easy for them to avoid setting off the boobytraps. So Jimmy's plan was the same as it had been two nights before – get in and disable the main bomb, then get back out before the agents showed up.

He hoped it would work better this time.

* * *

><p>It was a little after 4am when Jimmy pulled into his favorite parking lot in all of Rothstown, Virginia, just seven blocks away from his least favorite office building. <em>When this is over, I swear, I am never coming anywhere near this place again.<em> He grabbed his backpack, locked the car, then started south on the roundabout path to the house where he'd hidden in the hedges to watch the building.

_They should get here anytime in the next, oh, twenty minutes or so. I'll wait until they leave, then get in there and figure out what I'm doing with the wiring. Worst case, I'll call Abby and – but no, I really don't want to do that. I still don't want her to know that I know…_

Jimmy settled into his spot behind the hedges and wrapped his arms around his legs, trying to find a comfortable position that he could maintain for as long as he had to wait. _I'm going to do this thing, and then I'm going home,_ he thought, hoping that his positive intentions would have some impact on tonight's events. _I'll stop by Tony's first, and tear up that letter. Then I'm going home, and I'll watch the sun come up, and then I'm going to bed and I don't want to wake up until Tony comes home and crawls into bed with me…_

He watched and waited patiently until two cars pulled into the parking lot of the Art Jones Building. One of the cars went right back to the employee entrance, where the driver unloaded what looked like a large garbage can. _Yep, I was right._ The car was then parked on the opposite side of the building, next to the other car, and the two men opened the window and carefully manhandled the can inside.

Jimmy kept an eye on his watch. Without the inconvenience of an autopsy assistant stumbling upon them, the two men took about twenty minutes from arrival to departure. Jimmy waited ninety seconds, during which he pulled on his hat and gloves; then he slung his backpack over his shoulder and ran for the building, heading straight for the window. Again, he debated with himself over whether the window should be left open, but again, he decided that it would be better to not draw attention.

This trip up the stairs was taken at a much slower pace than last time, and it went much more smoothly – no unwelcome encounters to surprise him this time. Jimmy made his way to the document sorter, dropping his backpack and sitting cross-legged on the floor before opening the front access panel to reveal the inner workings of the bomb.

_Abby pointed out three wires that she thought might link the signal receiver to the detonator,_ Jimmy remembered. He aimed his flashlight into the interior of the sorter – and froze as he realized that with the addition of the extra explosive material, there were now more and different wires threaded throughout the small space.

_Oh, crap…_

* * *

><p>Jimmy slapped his open palm on the floor in frustration. He'd been working at this for more than fifteen minutes, and he still couldn't figure out how the bomb was set up. There were wires that seemed to go nowhere, that Abby had insisted that he not touch; wires that seemed important, that she'd told him were probably decoys; and then there were at least a dozen more that had been added after the time when he'd taken those pictures.<p>

_I can't call Abby now even if I wanted to,_ Jimmy thought. _There's not enough time._ He sighed and sat back, glaring at the machine that had been the bane of his existence these last few days.

_What would Tony do in this situation?_ Jimmy wondered idly. He shook his head, a grim smile upon his face. _I know what he'd do; he'd ask himself, 'What would Gibbs do?' And I'm pretty sure I know, but I'm not allowed to carry a gun, so I can't just shoot it._

The image of Gibbs pulling his gun and shooting at the bomb stayed with him; then, another thought started to take shape. _Maybe I'm making this harder than it needs to be. Think, Palmer. Abby said that the easiest way to disarm it would be to break the __connection between the receiver and the detonator. I can't figure out how to do that. So… is there any way to block the signal from being received?_

Jimmy shined his flashlight at the receiver, looking at it carefully. Then a silly smile crossed his face. _Oh my God… could it really be that simple? Or is this going to get me blown up again? Only one way to find out…_

He reached into his backpack and pulled out the multi-tool that he'd received from his uncle years before for Christmas. Uncle Rob never could stand the fact that Jimmy wasn't more mechanically inclined, like his kids were; he kept trying to get Jimmy involved in his projects, like engine rebuilding or do-it-yourself home improvements. Jimmy had never been interested in that kind of thing, but he did actually appreciate this particular gift. It was several different tools combined into one – pliers, screwdriver, corkscrew, knife, plus several other things that Jimmy had no idea what to do with.

But he knew how to use the screwdriver. Jimmy very carefully picked up the receiver, making sure not to pull the attached wires free, and began unscrewing the side panel of the device.

_Wow – a 9-volt battery may be all that makes the difference between a working explosive device and a pile of useless junk. Or it might immediately turn it into a working explosive device if it's removed. One good thing, though – if it doesn't blow up, there's almost no way anyone's going to find a 9-volt battery around here to replace this. No one _ever_ has one of these when they need it._

_I really hope this works. Here goes…_


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty Four

_February 5, 2011 – 5:03am_

Jimmy reached into the battery compartment, took hold of the battery, squeezed his eyes shut – and pulled in one swift movement. The battery came free, and –

Nothing happened.

Jimmy exhaled in relief and collapsed backwards onto the floor. He was almost giddy with the thrill of success. He allowed himself a moment to pull himself together, then sat up and started replacing the cover on the battery compartment. When the bomb disposal squad examined it, maybe they'd just think that the terrorists were that incompetent, instead of wondering who had tampered with it –

The door to the stairwell slammed open. Jimmy let out a startled squeak, dropping the multi-tool. His heart pounding in his ears, Jimmy quickly replaced the receiver and turned off his flashlight, listening hard to determine the nature of this intrusion.

He heard Carl's voice: "Did you hear that?"

Charlie: "Hear what?"

Jimmy could hear footsteps coming closer. Moving as quietly as he could, he got to his feet, grabbed his gear, and slipped away into the cubicle maze. He didn't have time to replace the panel of the sorter, which was going to present a problem – but not as big a problem as being seen by the two terrorists. He ducked into one of the middle cubicles and crawled under the desk, clutching at his backpack to still the trembling of his hands.

_Of all the terrorists in all the world,_ Jimmy couldn't help thinking, _why did _I_ get the obsessive-compulsive bomb builders? Can't they just leave it alone?_

Apparently not. Jimmy listened as the two made their way down the hallway created by the cubicle maze and the wall.

Carl: "So what do you think happened?"

Charlie: "Dunno. Maybe the guy changed his mind again. Or maybe Garrett screwed up and is trying to cover his ass now."

"You don't think anyone knows…?"

"Nah. If they did, Garrett woulda let us know. Or he woulda been caught before he could call in."

"Almost too bad, I can't stand – what the hell?"

That was Jimmy's cue to run. He abandoned his hiding place and his backpack to dash down the cubicle hallway, in the opposite direction of the sorter. He was pretty sure that this passage went straight through and would let him out the other side, where he could make a run for the stairwell. With any luck, Charlie and Carl would be focused on the document sorter and not –

"Hey, you! Stop!"

_Well, it was a nice thought, anyway._

Jimmy ran for the door and threw it wide open, all too aware of what had happened the last two times he'd tried running down these stairs. But there was no time to hesitate – especially when he heard the sharp report of a gunshot behind him.

_Crap! They weren't armed before!_

Yelling in sheer terror, Jimmy rushed down the first flight of stairs, rounding the corner just as the door was flung open again. He heard another gunshot, but fortunately the shooter was aiming at where he had been, not where he would be. There was another point in his favor – the shooter had to stop moving long enough to aim, while Jimmy wasn't about to stop for anything. Maybe, just maybe, he could get out of here and away from the building before they caught up with him…

He grabbed the safety rail as he started down the section where he'd fallen before, just to be on the safe side. It slowed him down slightly, but not as much as dislocating his knee would have done. He made it down that flight safely and kept moving. It was too much to hope that Charlie or Carl would fall and hurt themselves, he knew, but he still couldn't help but wish for it anyway.

No such luck. Jimmy had a good head start, but they were gaining on him – and this time, they could hit him with something a lot more dangerous than a flashlight.

The men were almost two full flights behind him when Jimmy leaped the last few steps to the ground floor and threw himself through the door into the call center. He hurried to the window – _Damn, they closed it too! – _and wrenched it open. As quickly as he could, he climbed through, his technique still clumsy despite all the practice he'd had the last few days.

Jimmy hopped on one foot until he could pull his right leg through. He turned quickly, started running – and stumbled to an abrupt stop as several dark-colored cars screeched to a halt in the parking lot, cutting off his escape.

"Federal agents! Freeze!" The shouts came from several different directions as doors were flung open and armed agents took up their positions behind them, every gun pointed straight at Jimmy.

"Don't shoot!" Jimmy screamed, throwing his arms in the air. "Don't shoot, I'm with NCIS!"

"Down on the ground!" That was Ron Sacks' voice, coming from somewhere off to Jimmy's left. Several other agents echoed the command, but from the right, a single voice barked out:

"Palmer! What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

Jimmy was blinded by the headlights, but he turned his head in the direction of Gibbs' shout. "Gibbs!" he yelled, hoping he would be heard over the increasingly frantic commands of the other agents. "There are armed men –"

"On the ground! _Now!"_

"Palmer!"

"_Jimmy, get down!"_

Jimmy turned automatically at Tony's voice –

Something slammed into Jimmy's right shoulder from behind, throwing him violently to the ground before he knew what was happening. That was followed by the deafening roar of gunshots as most of the federal agents opened fire. Terrified, Jimmy threw his left arm – he couldn't move the right – over his head and screamed into the asphalt, expecting to be hit at any moment…

The gunfire slowed, but continued steadily. Jimmy could hear several people shouting, but he couldn't make out the words until a familiar voice carried over the rest –

"Fornell, cover us!"

"Gibbs, what are you – fine, fine! Go!"

The tempo of gunfire picked up again. Jimmy gasped for breath as he lay flat on the ground, eyes squeezed shut, body trembling, mind completely frozen in fear. When hands grabbed onto each of his arms, his heart leaped in his chest and his eyes flew open; but it wasn't until they lifted him and half-carried, half-dragged him face down toward the vehicles that he understood that he was being rescued.

The shooting became more sporadic again once Jimmy and his saviors were out of the danger zone. They dragged him behind one of the larger vehicles; then they carefully lowered him to the ground, turning him so that he lay on his left side, leaning back against the legs of one of his rescuers as that person kneeled behind him.

"Palmer! Can you hear me?" That was Gibbs' voice.

"I'll call for an ambulance." McGee sounded worried.

"What was Palmer doing here?" Ziva asked, her concern evident only in the fact that she was asking a question she knew they didn't have the answer to.

"I don't know." Tony's voice was strained. "Jimmy, are you with us? Look at me."

As Tony was the one kneeling behind him, Jimmy had to turn his head to the right to look up at him. But as he started the movement, agony flared in his right shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain. It didn't get any better when Tony grabbed the scarf that Ziva handed to him, wadded it up, and pressed it hard against Jimmy's collarbone.

"Shh, it's okay," Tony tried to comfort him as Jimmy whimpered, tears coming to his eyes. "There's an ambulance on the way. We just need to keep pressure on it til they get here."

Unable to look up at Tony, Jimmy's eyes flicked to Gibbs' face. The other man's features were blurred – _Did I lose my glasses again? – _but Jimmy saw the red on his hands and suddenly realized where it had come from.

"I – I got shot?" he whispered. He'd meant to speak louder, but he still couldn't quite catch his breath.

Gibbs nodded. "Good thing you went down hard. FBI thought the shot came from you."

Tony's hands pressed harder against Jimmy's shoulder at that, and the younger man gasped. Gibbs' face became even more blurred in his vision, but he struggled to focus again. "Doors… the doors…" Even _he_ could barely hear himself now.

"What?" Tony leaned closer. "Say that again, Jimmy."

With a start, Jimmy realized that it was no longer completely dark out, and hadn't been for some time. What time was it? Couldn't be sunrise yet, it wasn't that bright – which meant that they weren't out of the woods yet. He opened his mouth, desperate to pass on a warning, but it was getting harder for him to breathe in; pain stabbed at his chest and shoulder with every attempt.

"Don't try to talk, Palmer. They'll be here soon."

Jimmy's eyes fixed on a blur of orange – Gibbs' watch. It reminded him of another time when he'd been in pain and unable to speak. He tried to lift his hands, but his right arm refused to move and only punished him with more pain for making the attempt.

"Stay still, Jimmy. You're going to be okay, just stay still."

That was okay – he didn't actually know the sign for the word he wanted, and he doubted that Gibbs would be amused by the rather inappropriate substitute he'd come up with. Instead, he reached out with his left hand and, aiming for the orange watchband, grabbed Gibbs' arm and shook it.

"What –"

Once he had Gibbs' attention, Jimmy let go and laboriously began to fingerspell: B-O-O-B-Y-T-R –

Gibbs grabbed onto his hand. "We know about the doors, Palmer. We've got it under control, just stay still."

_It's not sunrise yet,_ Jimmy thought frantically. _We're not safe until sunrise._ But he didn't know how to tell them, and he was starting to become light-headed…

Tony looked down at Jimmy in surprise. "That was your handwriting!" he exclaimed. "I _knew_ I'd seen it before!"

Jimmy nodded, fighting to keep his eyes open. He'd come so close – he couldn't pass out now, he had to see it through til sunrise. He had to see them safe.

He heard shouts and loud thumping coming from nearby. Suddenly, he realized what he _hadn't_ been hearing for several minutes – the thunder of gunfire.

"Over here! Hurry!"

Abruptly, Gibbs' hand pulled away from his. Tony held on a moment longer, then relinquished his position to a man in blue, who took over holding the pressure on Jimmy's wound. Another man appeared where Gibbs had been and started talking to Jimmy, asking him questions and trying to get him to respond.

Jimmy stared blankly at the sky. It was a medium blue, not yet the lighter hue that it would take once the sun peeked over the horizon. Then, to his dismay, it started to grow darker. _Tony. Where's Tony? I have to see the sun rise… I have to see Tony… where is he? Please, please, I can't lose you again, Tony, please…_

Consciousness faded as the darkness engulfed him.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty Five

_February ?, 2011 – o'dark thirty_

It took a while for Jimmy to realize that he was awake. The room was silent, except for a soft beeping sound that he couldn't place. He blinked slowly in the darkness. There was something he had to do, something important, but he couldn't remember what. Wait. It was starting to come back to him, a piece at a time. First, check for Tony, make sure he was in bed. Okay, he could do that.

Jimmy started to sit up, but a sudden sharp pain in his right shoulder arrested the movement. He gasped aloud before he could stop himself. He wasn't supposed to wake Tony, he remembered that much. Slowly he stretched out his left hand, faintly surprised to realize that he'd been sleeping on his back. He never slept on his back, but apparently he had tonight. He knew that ought to tell him something, but he couldn't think of what it might be. He held onto one thought. Make sure Tony was sleeping; make sure Tony was safe. Cautiously he felt around with his left hand; that was Tony's side of the bed when he stayed with Jimmy.

But instead of encountering a sleeping DiNozzo, Jimmy's hand found only the edge of the mattress. Fear seized him then, causing him to tense, which triggered the pain in his shoulder again. He gasped for breath, hardly noticing when the beeping increased its tempo. The events of the last several nights were coming back to him now, albeit in bits and pieces. If Jimmy was waking up alone in bed, that could only mean one thing – he had failed. Tony was dead.

Jimmy shook his head. "No," he whispered. "No, he can't be. No, no, no, please, God…" The pain intensified – both the physical and the emotional – and Jimmy cried out into the darkness. "No! No, _please _no…!"

There was a loud thump nearby, and then a shadowy figure leaned over him, one hand pressing against Jimmy's left shoulder to hold him down while the other gently touched the side of his face in a familiar caress.

"Jimmy, it's okay! You're safe, it's okay!"

Jimmy's breath caught in his throat. He couldn't make out the features of the person hovering over him – it was dark and he didn't have his glasses – but he knew that voice. He reached out blindly with his left hand and touched a cheek rough with several days' worth of stubble.

"Tony?"

Tony let go of Jimmy's shoulder to take his young lover's hand in his and press it to his lips. "God, Jimmy, you scared me half to death!" he said, his voice hoarse.

Jimmy's thoughts were still hazy. He knew he had been wrong, Tony wasn't dead – the evidence was right here before him, dripping tears on his hand. He wasn't supposed to wake Tony up, but obviously he had, so what was he supposed to do next? Something… there was something he was supposed to do, something about the time…

"Tony, what time is it?"

Tony's laugh sounded suspiciously like a sob. "What?" He pulled his hand away from Jimmy's face long enough to glance at his watch. "It's four in the morning. Why?"

Jimmy closed his eyes. Four o'clock… he was supposed to be at the building, taking pictures, wasn't he? No, that was earlier; and besides, he'd already done that, and been blown up for his trouble. Four o'clock – he was supposed to be on his way to go defuse the bomb, wasn't he? If he didn't, Tony and everyone else would die. Adrenaline surged through him, and he tried to sit up, crying out in pain when his shoulder protested the movement.

"Whoa, easy there!" Tony carefully pushed him back down. "You'll tear your stitches!"

His words didn't register. "I've got to go," Jimmy insisted, trying again to get out of the bed. He didn't know why his shoulder hurt so badly or why he couldn't move his right arm. He needed that arm to defuse the bomb, he was right-handed. Panic set in, and he started to struggle, which made it hurt even worse. "Tony, help me!"

Instead of helping him up, though, Tony held him down. "Jimmy, stop, it's okay!" He reached for Jimmy's good hand and gripped it tightly. "It's okay, you're safe here. I won't let anyone hurt you, I swear."

Jimmy knew he was missing something, but fear was robbing him of his ability to think clearly. Desperately, he blurted out the truth. "Tony, there's a bomb –"

"I know, it's okay, Jimmy. It's been taken care of. We caught them. You're safe now, it's okay. It's over."

Stunned, Jimmy stopped struggling. He stared up at Tony, his eyes wide. Now that he'd been awake a while, his eyes were adjusting to the dimness of the room. He could see his lover's unkempt hair and unshaven face. Remembering that first touch, he reached up again and brushed his fingers over the stubble. "What day is it?" he whispered.

"It's Monday. You've been mostly out of it for two days." Tony reached for his hand again, and now Jimmy could feel the other man's trembling. "God, Jimmy, I was so scared for you…"

Jimmy glanced around. It was still dim, and everything was still out of focus, but he could now see that he wasn't in his own bedroom. "I'm in the hospital?" he asked weakly.

Tony shifted so that he could sit on the edge of the bed. "Yeah. You were shot from behind," he explained, nodding toward Jimmy's right shoulder. "You were lucky. Another couple of inches…" His voice trailed off, and he pressed his lips to the back of Jimmy's hand to hide how they trembled.

Looking at Tony, Jimmy suddenly flashed back to another time and place that only he remembered. The image of Tony kneeling in front of him, refusing to leave him no matter how much he begged the other man to save himself, had been seared into his heart and mind by a force greater even than the explosives that had literally torn them apart. Tony had seemed so calm and controlled; now, Jimmy was seeing some of what must have been taking place behind the mask. He wished he could have resolved the time loop in such a way as to spare Tony from having to feel that pain.

Jimmy had to look away before his expression betrayed those thoughts. "Gibbs let you stay here?" he asked to change the subject.

Tony smiled grimly. "Yeah. Protection detail." He lifted his leg up and pulled up the leg of his jeans to show Jimmy the gun holstered at his ankle. "That NSA bastard shows up here again, I'm gonna blow his kneecaps out."

Jimmy thought he'd put all the pieces back together, but now he was confused. "Huh?"

"Saturday night, Agent Beckett tried sneaking in," Tony explained, as if Jimmy was supposed to know who that was. "Hospital security caught him and threw him out. Vance promised Gibbs he'd have it out with the guy's director, but Gibbs didn't want to take any chances, and neither did I." He rubbed the back of Jimmy's hand gently with his thumb.

Jimmy closed his eyes, trying to ignore the rising pain in his shoulder. He had no idea what Tony was talking about. Wasn't that supposed to work the other way around? That's how it was in the movies. If this were a movie, Jimmy would make some comment referencing something that happened on a different version of the same night, and Tony would be confused. Instead, Tony was playing the wrong role, confusing the hell out of Jimmy. What did Tony know that Jimmy didn't?

"Jimmy?" He felt Tony's hand stroking his hair, much as the older man would do to comfort him after a nightmare. "Shh, just relax. There'll be a pretty nurse with some pain meds here any minute now."

But instead of a pretty nurse, it was a pretty doctor who showed up a few minutes later, and who insisted that Tony wait outside to give her patient some privacy. Jimmy nodded at him when Tony threw a questioning look his way. Tony's role as special agent on protective detail didn't necessarily justify his presence while the doctor examined Jimmy; his role as Jimmy's lover might, but then they'd have to trust the hospital staff to keep it to themselves.

So Tony stepped outside, keeping an eye on the passers-by in the hallway, while the doctor closed the door and turned to her patient.

"It's good to see you awake, Mr. Palmer," she commented as she picked up his chart. "Or may I call you Jimmy?"

"Jimmy's fine," he mumbled absently, squinting in her direction. Without his glasses, he could tell that she had short blonde hair and was wearing lavender scrubs, but he couldn't see more than that. Her voice sounded vaguely familiar, though. "Could I have my glasses, please?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, but I believe they were broken when you were injured." She stepped closer to take his wrist, looking at her watch as she counted his pulse. Then she pulled out a pocket light and leaned in closer to shine it in his eyes, to check the reaction of his pupils.

Just before the light blinded him, he got a better look. Her hair was styled in that wild, seemingly random way that nonetheless looked good on certain people – it certainly did on her – and she had bright green eyes. "Have I seen you before?" he asked.

The doctor stood again to make a note on the chart, her features blurring in his vision once more. "It's possible," she commented idly as she wrote.

Jimmy frowned. Something in all this seemed wrong to him, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. "What's your name?" he asked, his left hand nervously playing with the blanket that covered him up to his chest.

The doctor glanced toward the door – Jimmy wouldn't have seen it if she hadn't moved her head slightly – then stepped close again, blocking the view of anyone looking in through the door's tiny window. "You can call me Dr. Beckett," she said quietly.

Jimmy looked up in alarm. That was the name… "Tony said you were a guy," he blurted as he started to sit up, frantic to get as far away from her as possible.

"Calm down!" the woman ordered in a sharp whisper, grabbing his shoulder – his good shoulder, thankfully – to keep him from moving. "You need to listen to me, and unlike some people, _I_ only get one chance to get this right!" she hissed into his ear.

_That_ stopped him. "What?" Then he got a better look at her, from inches away, where his vision was almost perfect. "You were the paramedic at the crime scene!"

"Probably," she agreed, nodding at him. "I was working undercover with the Rothstown EMS that night, but I never got the call. In this reality," she added. "I don't know how many times I might have been there in your version of it."

Jimmy lay back cautiously – he didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. "How do you know?" he asked.

"I can't give you a lot of details," 'Dr. Beckett' said, "especially about how it works, because I don't understand the technical aspects myself. Let's just say that I work as part of a government research project on… call it time manipulation."

"Tony said a guy calling himself Agent Beckett from the NSA tried getting in here Saturday night," Jimmy commented. "Is that who you work for?"

She smiled. "Not exactly, but it's a useful fiction," she told him. "The official story – which is what you need to know – is that the NSA knew about a terrorist threat on American soil and acted to prevent it, and utilized the skills of a civilian volunteer – that's you – to help stop it. The unofficial story – which you also need to know – is that the NSA needed a disposable asset – that's you – to go in and risk his life to defuse the bomb, and that we 'persuaded' you to help us by convincing you that the people closest to you were in grave danger. That's the story that you need to give to your superiors. You can bring in your affair with Agent DiNozzo or not, that's up to you."

Jimmy's eyebrows shot up. "How did you know about that?" he exclaimed.

"Shh!" 'Beckett' hushed him. She glanced toward the door, but they didn't seem to have attracted Tony's attention. "We needed to find someone unofficial who would still have access to the resources they'd need to stop the bombing, and who would have a strong enough motivation to take whatever risks were necessary. We knew Agent DiNozzo was seeing someone, possibly someone within NCIS given how secretive he was about the relationship. When we found out it was you, we knew we had our man." She winked at him at that last part.

"But…" Jimmy shook his head, as if he could shake his thoughts into place. "But how did you know – any of this?"

'Beckett' made another note on Jimmy's chart, then replaced it on its hook at the end of his bed. "I can't tell you that, Jimmy," she said, reaching into her pocket. Jimmy's eyes grew wide when she pulled out a capped syringe. "Oh, calm down, already," she chided him as she pulled the cap off. "If we wanted you dead, we'd have programmed that as part of the loop criteria. It would have been a lot less risky than killing you right under your boyfriend's nose."

"What – what do you mean?"

"The loop you were in couldn't end until all the criteria that we set were met," she explained, moving around to his right side. His eyes followed her movement, finally noticing the IV taped to his – currently useless – right arm. "Don't worry, I really am a doctor," she reassured him when she noticed him nervously watching her hands as she reached for the IV line.

"What were the criteria?"

'Beckett' expertly injected the contents of the syringe into the IV port. Whatever else she said, she probably _was_ a doctor – the movement looked perfectly natural.

"The explosion had to be prevented, and the head of the MCRT – Special Agent Gibbs – had to survive. That was the original plan. Once we decided to use you as our subject, we expanded it to include the rest of the MCRT. It wasn't necessary, but we felt it wouldn't be fair to you to put you through that without ensuring that the risks you would take would be worth it."

Jimmy glanced down at his heavily bandaged shoulder. It hurt like hell, and he knew he was facing a lot of physical therapy in his future, not to mention the possibility of permanent disability, but… "It was worth it," he whispered, more to himself than to her.

"Even if you'd died?"

"I did die, once," he answered. Then her meaning sunk in. "You mean…?"

She nodded. "Your survival wasn't part of the criteria," she stated matter-of-factly. "A mistake we won't make again, I assure you."

"Again?" His eyelids were starting to grow heavy, but Jimmy forced them to stay open.

"Don't worry about it right now," 'Beckett' told him, patting his hand lightly with her own. "The chances of our using you again are pretty slim. You just happened to be the right person at the right time."

Jimmy reached up, left-handed, and caught her hand. He wasn't sure he could trust her, but right now, she was the only person he could talk to about his experience without ending up in a psych ward. "Why is Agent Gibbs so important to you?"

"We'll need him later. I can't tell you more than that."

_Figures._ "Is your name really Beckett?" he asked, apropos of nothing.

"No, and neither was the other agent's," she told him. "It's just a convenient name."

"What do you call yourselves, the Quantum Loop Project?"

'Beckett' snorted in laughter. "Ha, that's a good one!" she said, gently disengaging her hand from his. "I may have to use that sometime." She laid his arm on his chest, then reached up to pull back his eyelids and check his pupils again. "I'll let your boyfriend back in now. It was nice knowing you, Jimmy."

Jimmy closed his eyes, intending to open them again to say goodbye… but somehow he never got around to it.

* * *

><p>When he opened his eyes again, the room was somewhat lighter. Tony was sitting in a chair next to his bed, eyes closed and chin resting on his chest. Jimmy winced; he didn't want to wake his lover, but Tony was going to have an awful crick in his neck if he didn't.<p>

He reached over and touched Tony's knee with his fingers. "Hey, Tony?"

Tony's eyes snapped open, and he lifted his head. "I wasn't sleeping," he lied.

"Uh huh, sure." Jimmy smiled; even out of focus, Tony's face was a beautiful sight. He glanced around the room. "Are we alone?"

Tony nodded. "Ziva will be here in a little while to take her turn watching you, but we've got a few minutes." He reached for the bedside table and picked something up. "I brought these from home," he explained, unfolding a pair of glasses and handing them to Jimmy.

It was slightly awkward putting them on with one hand, but Jimmy managed. They were his old pair, an older prescription, but good enough that he could now see his surroundings. "Thanks, Tony," he said. Then he smiled. "You know, I should get contacts. I've lost more glasses because of you…" He meant it in a teasing way, but Tony's expression sobered.

"Jimmy, I don't know what Beckett told you…" he started.

At first, Jimmy thought he meant the doctor; then he realized that Tony was referring to the 'NSA agent' who supposedly coerced Jimmy into working with him. "Tony…" he started, not really sure what he was going to follow up with.

"I almost lost my mind when I saw you out there," Tony admitted to him. "And when I saw you go down…" He didn't finish, but the expression on his face said it all. Then his jaw tightened. "And then that smug bastard shows up here and gives Gibbs some bull about 'recruiting' you for the job. We were all ready to kill him. I can't believe he actually tried to come back the other night."

Jimmy figured the guy had been trying to see him so he could fill him in on what he was already supposed to know, but it wouldn't have mattered even if he hadn't been caught, given Jimmy's still unconscious state at the time. The doctor-agent, however, had been successful. It really was a good thing that they didn't want him dead; that ruse had worked far too well.

"Jimmy." Tony's voice refocused his attention. Jimmy looked at him and was surprised to see the guilt and anguish on his face. "I know they probably told you not to talk about it, but… what did they say that made you go along with it? You could have been killed!"

"I couldn't watch you die." The words escaped before Jimmy could stop them, but he managed to keep one to himself. _Again. I couldn't watch you die again._

"Jimmy, we would have been okay –"

"No, you wouldn't. You would have set off the traps on the doors, and even if you didn't, you would have still been in there when the main bomb went off."

Tony looked down; he couldn't dispute the fact that they probably wouldn't have seen the traps on the doors if Jimmy hadn't sent them the warning.

Jimmy took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Breathing out, he opened them again and reached for Tony with his good arm. "Don't be mad, Tony, I –"

"How could I be –"

"I had a choice," Jimmy lied, knowing now that there truly had been no choice. And yet, even when he thought he had one… "I know you probably wish I hadn't gotten involved. But, Tony…" He stopped to swallow, remembering again how Tony had stayed with him despite the approaching disaster, how Tony had disobeyed Gibbs' direct order to leave. _"Would you have left Shannon?" _"Tony, in my position, you would have done the same thing."

Again, a statement that Tony couldn't deny. "I just don't like the idea of you risking your life like that," he said instead.

_You think I like watching you walk into danger every day?_ But Jimmy didn't say it. What he'd told Ducky – which Ducky wouldn't remember; Jimmy would have to be careful about that – was true. He risked losing Tony every time the other man went to work. That was a risk he had to accept, if he wanted to have Tony at all. _And I do. More than anything, I do._

He looked toward the window. "What time is it?" he asked.

Distracted by the question, Tony looked at his watch. "About 6:30. Ziva should be here at seven."

"In the morning?"

"Yeah. You slept for a couple hours after the doctor checked on you." Tony squeezed Jimmy's hand. "How are you feeling?"

Jimmy's shoulder ached; it was starting to throb, which told him that whatever 'Dr. Beckett' had given him was wearing off. He was tired, and had the beginnings of a headache. But he smiled at Tony. "I'm good," he told his lover. Then the smile turned into a mischievous grin. "Will you do something for me?"

Tony looked at him suspiciously. "What?"

Jimmy suspected that in his current condition, he could wrap Tony DiNozzo around his little finger, and he was right. Which was how he came to be sitting in an alcove on the east side of the building – Tony put his foot down and refused to take him outside – sitting in a wheelchair, holding Tony's hand, a few minutes later.

"What are we doing here?" Tony didn't sound put out, just curious. He pulled over a plastic chair and sat down next to Jimmy.

"Just wait."

The minutes went by; the sky grew lighter. Tony pulled out his phone and texted Ziva, asking her to pick up breakfast and coffee for himself and Jimmy. He knew she'd refuse if it was just for him, but, like Tony, Ziva wouldn't say no to something for their injured Autopsy Gremlin. It would delay her for a few minutes, giving him longer to sit with his strangely silent lover.

Tony glanced over at him. Jimmy was sitting in his 'borrowed' wheelchair, staring out at the early morning sky. He had a smile on his face and tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Jimmy?" Tony slowly put his arm around the younger man, careful not to jar his injured shoulder. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Jimmy turned to look at the man he loved. "Look. The sun's coming up."

He leaned into Tony's embrace, holding tightly onto his hand, and watched the sun rise.

* * *

><p><em>Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. ~ Anne Lamott<em>

THE END

* * *

><p>And here we are! Thank you, everyone, for the positive reviews and for staying with this til the end. I know there are a couple of loose ends, but they're like that on purpose. (The ones I know about, anyway - here's hoping there aren't any that I <em>don't<em> know about!) It won't be right away - I'm not sure how long it will take - but there is a short follow-up in the works, tentatively titled "The Letter." And if things go really well, there will be more to come in this 'verse. I have to be honest, though - I haven't had a lot of time to write lately, so it could be quite a while before I get there.

Again, thank you all!

~ Leona


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